


Digital Storage Solutions

by EIG613



Series: E.I.G.'s Pokemon Setting [4]
Category: Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon
Genre: Gen, Transformation, mostly original plot, the author is bad at leaving characters their original species
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 94
Words: 447,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27982830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EIG613/pseuds/EIG613
Summary: Digital Storage Solutions is the largest item storage company in its region, and as a result it has the resources to devote to unique pokemon storage methods. The resulting digital worlds require Troubleshooters with similarly unique skills to handle the kinds of issues that appear in them.
Series: E.I.G.'s Pokemon Setting [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2038366
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	1. P-00 Prologue: Beta 16 Box 66

**Author's Note:**

> This is my longest story to date, and it is still ongoing.  
> My current plan is to post a chapter a day until I catch up with the Fanfiction.net version.

\--- Prologue: Beta 16 Box 66 ---

"Hey! You there, are you a trainer?" a slightly panicked voice cried out from a nearby building. Serperior's head rose from its resting place on Shawn's shoulder as the massive serpent slithered alongside him to look to the glass doors at the front of the office building. The structure had a stylized 'DSS' on the front above a sign declaring it to be the "Digital Storage Solutions" facility.

"Yes, is there a problem?" he asked quickly, already moving to assist with his starter right beside him.

"Just hurry, we need help restraining some pokemon in trouble," the red haired woman replied letting the two of them through the door and leading them further inside. "A-0 get over here, you're the best we have for this," she said to someone else as they entered a large room full of electronics.

"I am ready Janice," a mechanical voice said, soon revealed to the trainer and serpent as a bird-like polygonal entity floating in the room. Shawn was sure this talking pokemon was worried itself.

"Right, get on this pad and be ready when the light dies down. We should have six normal types present on the far end along with Beta 16. A-0 will take care of him, you just need to make sure the pokemon don't hurt each other or themselves," Janice rapidly told them, directing it more at Serperior than his trainer.

The trainer and two pokemon were quickly led to a large pad between two pronged devices. "This is going to be weird, isn't it?" Shawn asked with a smile that was shared by his pokemon.

"Just get in there and save them," the woman said with a sigh as she activated the machine. There was a massive flash of light and the three were gone. "Trainers," she said shaking her head and rushing over to a set of monitors.

"Vines!" the trainer shouted as soon as he felt solid ground again, which was a few seconds before he could see again. Serperior moved more by touch than anything in those moments, and managed to grab three Normal types that neither of them could recognize.

"Brother, what is happening? Send a status report, something!" the blue and pink pokemon that came with him called to a monster. It might have once been the same species, but now it was twisted and wrong. The plates were pulled apart revealing nothing inside, with some broken into fragmented shapes, and the pink color was replaced with a horrible black that seemed to almost suck the light out of the room. The area around it was in was coated in broken black shards that were too numerous to be simply fallen parts of the creature.

"Err/ 56$#%@5$^$6@$# buy now !$124g4334saw," it hissed out in a broken scrambled sound. Brief flashes of color coating the blackened areas as it made the attempt. A-0 shot forward and gave a buzzing series of beeps in reply, then caused two panes of blue material covered in text to appear in between them.

Shawn only paid the exchange enough attention to react if it threatened his partner or their own targets. Serperior had easily bound a fourth pokemon, and a fifth that seemed saner than the rest was aiding them by holding down the final one. The trainer did not take that as success yet, instead moving closer to inspect one of the Normal types. With some time to look over their bodies he could tell they had also been altered by the same strange substance affecting the machine-like pokemon. Seeing the tiny fragments of black corruption on them as well he made a decision. "Serp, get rid of it," he told his partner pointing at one of the pieces. Glowing green leaves flew at the flat structure, shattering it and causing some of the slightly twisted features of the victim to revert to a more natural appearance. The snake pokemon quickly targeted the others and let attacks fly.

Porygon A-0 was doing considerable worse. All its words had managed to be so far was useless pleading, and the data it was reading regarding its brother only changed its tone to a desperate one. Beta 16 was not reacting coherently, and what little of his speech was clear was a mix of fragmented advertisements and what A-0 could not help but interpret as pleading as well. As Serperior shattered the first of the smaller fragments the gender-less Porygon gained a spark of hope, forming blasts of light and hitting the ground around them to shatter more corruption.

The hope died when it finished another scan of its brother in light of the new information the Grass type's actions had provided. "Trainer, do you possess a pokemon with a powerful attack that will not physically touch its target?" A-0 asked dully staring at Beta 16.

"Solar Beam, where do you need it?" Shawn replied quickly, the six pokemon now back to normal and huddling behind the trainer and serpent.

"Full strength, center of body," the pink and blue pokemon buzzed, pausing for a moment in pain. "Do not stop for anything," it said with a finality that froze the trainer in place. Serperior hissed a question, red eyes wide and horrified. "There is no time. It is already preparing to spread again, and I cannot be sure it won't reach other Boxes. Now!" The final word caught as it was said, breaking into a pained beep.

"Serperior, do it," Shawn replied seriously, watching the shattered blackened form seem to fight against something. There was a moment of tension as the attack built up before it fired, the green beam shooting from the Grass type's chest. The trainer and pokemon kept their eyes open as it hit, black planes shattering like brittle ice one by one until suddenly the whole creature disintegrated with a sharp sound. The room around them seemed to dull at this, the air immediately becoming stale and lifeless.

"Initiating retrieval process," A-0 said tonelessly, and soon after another flash has transported all nine survivors back out to the pad. They arrived in a rough pile that the snake pokemon quickly began to sort out.

"A-0, I'm sorry," were the first words out of Janice's mouth when they could see again, her tone sad as she worked rapidly on the machine turned away form them. "Were you able to figure anything out?"

"The virus was altered by the unusual structure of a Beta series box," the pokemon began mechanically, this time obviously out of pain more than nature. "Beta 16 was able to perform initial containment, but was damaged in the process. The next replication phase resulted in further mutation as the virus infested Beta 16. Two more such phases had occurred by the time of our arrival, and I estimate that box containment was already at the breach point. Have the nearby boxes been scanned for the virus?"

"I've handled that," she replied more calmly. "Was there no other way?"

The pink and blue pokemon wavered in its hovering for a moment. "Beta 16's main thought process was already damaged beyond repair by the end of the initial replication phase. At best he was in the process of dying when we arrived. At worst he was partially aware while his body betrayed his own purpose." A-0 turned to Serperior. "I am sorry for asking you to-" The snake cut him off with a hiss and wave of an arm.

"As long as we saved the ones we could we'll be fine," Shawn contributed from in front of the still frightened Normal types. "Which is why I hope you can check to make sure these guys are okay. We did our best in there, but we don't really know what's going on here, so I can't be sure I didn't just make it worse."

"Natural pokemon are less vulnerable to this kind of illness. We should check them, but removing the fragments was needed," A-0 replied much more strongly. "Janice, this cannot happen again."

"The development team is already scrambling, and they don't even know-" she took a breath "know that Beta 16 is gone yet." She looked over at Shawn. "I don't suppose you want a job do you?" she asked tired and worried. "We might have gotten to him faster if we already had a trainer on hand for this."


	2. 1-00 An Average Day

Act 1, Troubleshooters  
\--- An Average Day ---

Shawn woke up to the shuffling of Serperior on the bunk underneath him, and the end of the serpent's tail sliding off his body. The trainer looked down to the floor of their small apartment within the DSS building to see the half awake plant pokemon moving to prepare the serpent's typical glass of lemonade. As the human member of the pair got his clothes for the day around the Grass type retrieved a can of generic soda from the small refrigerator along one wall using a vine and moved to place it on the counter for his trainer as Shawn moved to the bathroom to get ready.

Serperior had finished drinking, washed his glass, and was fully awake by the time his trainer returned. The two proceeded to spend a short time checking their supplies and going over the list of tasks they eventually needed to complete written on a whiteboard hung beside the one window in their fairly small room. They added soda to the growing list of groceries they needed to buy, and then looked up at a knock on their door. The pair quickly moved to the entrance with their gear ready.

Opening the door revealed Janice standing calmly with a clipboard and pen. "Good morning. Delta 6 wants to see more Fire types for some reason, and considering the last time a Delta asked to see a particular type I need you three to go in first to interrogate the Porygon as to why before I give an answer," she said dryly as Shawn stretched in the doorway of his room.

"Charlies are worse, they know their type and obsess over it," Shawn said as Serperior moved into view from behind him. The plant pokemon grumbled slightly, not quite agreeing with his partner.

"Deltas try things," she replied with no change in tone. "A-0 is already waiting. It seems worried, so I think Delta 6 has spoken with it some before about this."

The starter let out a woody groan that his trainer agreed with. "Right, that issue. So is the contract on her Box running out, or is this another case of rumors going round?" Shawn asked as his pokemon quickly slid out of the apartment so he could lock the door.

Janice flipped through the papers on the clipboard for a moment. "I have not heard about that, what is the situation then?"

"The way I heard it the current Grass type group isn't going to keep the Box any longer, didn't hear why, and they were going to have a new type move in," he replied as Serperior curled around his body partially and the three began to move towards the Troubleshooter Lab. "Charlie 46 was preparing a document on contract changes for her."

The Troubleshooter Lead let out a short grunt at that explanation. "I'll have to talk with contracting about that. If she was a Charlie then I could say that kind of thing doesn't happen, but someone upstairs might just have thought a Delta could handle that kind of change," she said making a note on the top page of the clipboard. "Hold off on going to Box 205 until I have an answer."

"Sounds fine, we still need to look at that log dam that the Bibarel made in Box 146 and see if it can stay. Apparently digital rivers work differently enough that there's some confusion," Shawn said as they reached the elevator to take them down to the lab. "A-0 was planning on looking over their contract change advice while we were there."

The typical elevator ride was short, and the doors opened to the hallway leading to the Troubleshooter's Digital Transfer Lab. Janice walked ahead of the trainer and pokemon to get started on the portion of the job involving direct access to the computer systems. The door to the lab opened just before they arrived revealing A-0 floating with a slightly tired expression.

"Be aware, a minor virus has been identified in the power access system," it said with a dull tone. "It appears to have originated with a power saving function of the new coffee machine on the second floor. Please submit a complaint to maintenance regarding this topic."

Janice raised an eyebrow at the request. "What did you do this time?" she asked looking over the Porygon.

"My maintenance ticket permissions have been restricted since the Alpha 50 incident last week. As a consequence I cannot properly report this serious issue," A-0 replied holding up its blocky beak.

"I don't think they will miss that it is really your complaint," Shawn contributed sharing a smile with his starter. "You're the one who gets the most upset about them using decaf in that pot." At this the Porygon gave a series of upset beeps.

Janice rubbed her face and shook her head as she moved on to her console to start work for the day. "Right, let's just get started."

Shawn nodded booting up the console by the transfer device and began to set it up to send the small team into DSS Pokemon Storage Box 146. A-0 beeped dully as it saw what their target destination was.

\---

The digital world of a Charlie was more complex than the simple grey cubes of the original run or the half altered off-white space that Beta Porygon were more actively working on. In 46's case their world was a seemingly endless forest with small clearings and a medium sized river running through it. The sight of blocky trees and segmented grass was still somewhat unnerving to the trainer, and he took a moment to get used to it while Serperior slithered off his shoulder to look over the artificial plants with a hint of a frown. A-0 floated forward slightly into the clearing just in front of where they had arrived, only to rush back at an airy beeping sound as the Box's Administrator arrived.

Charlie 46 had, like many of the third production run of Porygon, taken on a form mimicking a pokemon associated with their assigned theme. In 46's case they were given the forest area that now surrounded them as their goal to maintain, and so they chose the Psychic/Grass Legendary protector of forests Celebi as their shape. Their body was a short form with a large head that swept backwards to a point mad out of fairly large green plates. The plates from their belly down and at the very end of their pointed head were a dark green, with the other plates a much lighter color. Two light blue plates on either side of their head acted as eyes for the digital pokemon. The false Celebi lacked the wings that a real member of that Legendary species would possess, and as far as Shawn was aware they had not figured out how to manipulate time either.

"Troubleshooters, A-0, you're here," the green digital creature chirped happily. "The Bibarel's are complaining and I don't know what they mean," they continued pointing towards the river.

"Hey 46, can you get a translation running for me?" Shawn asked. "I'd rather not hold you up with trying to explain what they are saying if you don't quite get what they are meaning." Serperior made a grumbling sound at the question but held his tail up to volunteer to have his understanding of pokemon used to give the human the ability temporarily. The Porygon nodded and flashed briefly.

"It isn't as fun when you get the hisst of the jokes," the Grass type serpent said partly to complain and partly to test the change.

"But then I'd miss out on your serperior sense of humor," the trainer joked with a hiss of his own. The group looked at him in response to the inhuman sound.

"Both at the same time," A-0 groaned at the puns. "Why is he talking like a snake?" the Troubleshooter asked its sibling.

"Ah, well I just temporarily changed them to use the same language. It should wear off fine," Charlie 46 replied somewhat nervously. "Should be alright."

Shawn and Serperior shared a look and sighed together. "You're going to end up stuck eventually," the plant pokemon said to his trainer.

"I'm going to end up stuck eventually," Shawn agreed neutrally. "46, do you have that document you were making about contracts?" he asked changing the subject.

"Yes, I was able to finish my thoughts. Let me just make you a copy." The green Porygon held out its hand and proceeded to create a small cube with alternating faces matching their colors. The small block was a common thing for the various Administrator pokemon to make. They were simple physical manifestations of documents and code that were surprisingly capable of being transferred out of the small digital worlds and even reused as data storage in the real world.

"I will look it over while we work on your issue," A-0 said levitating the cube onto its head. "Let's see about these Bibarel."

A-0 beeped somewhat unhappily while it read throughout the trip to the river. Distances inside a Box were quite difficult to judge, as the Administrator could easily alter them based on the needs of whoever was traveling. The Celebi shaped Porygon seemed to want to give the group some time to think as it was not an instant journey to the small dam that the inhabiting pokemon had constructed. Three Bibarel were along the edge, their natural living forms seeming slightly out of place in the polygonal world. Two were actively moving about looking around the area while the third was distracted with a small stick it was attempting to use to write something on the ground.

"There they are," one of the moving pokemon said pointing at them. "Look at this, look." It pointed to the small collection of logs. The blocky wood was apparently cut in various parts, with lighter colored panels showing where more of the former digital tree had once existed. They were stuck together with what might have been dirt and mud, the ground colored polygons obviously separate from the logs themselves but otherwise as seamless as the ground at the banks of the flowing water.

"It's just ignorin' it. Perfectly fine dam for what we have to work with and the river just don' care," the other said gesturing to the quite obvious problem. The water on either side of the barrier was at the same level, and despite the solid material between it there still appeared to be the full current even just after the intended blockage.

"But it is a river, water flowing in a set course. What is the issue?" the false Celebi asked looking over the dam slightly curiously. "Is it how it moves? I admit having it move like this does cause a bit of processing issues with regards to force interactions."

"Generally when water snakes down a riverbed it moves over or under obstacles, not through them," Serperior said poking at the dam with his tail.

"Dams stop the water from flowing, usually making a pond while having less flow through them," Shawn contributed looking over the area behind the dam, attracting the attention of the third Normal/Water type. "How big was this one going to be?" he asked the Normal/Water types.

The third Bibarel jumped up and gave a rapid fire description of their plan complete with detailed figures on depth, rate of flow, and dozens of other factors that went straight over the heads of the trainer and snake pokemon. It then ran through a rough pass around a dip in the area behind the dam that gave them more context than the massive barrage of words that continued as it moved. Charlie 46 however looked amazed at the result floating closer and opening a flat pane to record notes and perform calculations on.

"Wonderful! Details and data!" the artificial pokemon cheered. "Why couldn't you have simply started with that?" they asked turning back to the other two Bibarel, with the second one to speak palming his head. "I will need to check the resource requirements of modeling this interaction you expected, but if you can provide this sort of data I should be able to at least create the proper end results for you."

"Of course his damn number crunching actually solves the problem," the first one said, turning an annoyed look at Serperior when the plant pokemon laughed at the unintended pun.

"Is that everything you needed?" Shawn asked shaking his head at the quick solution.

"Possibly. I was able to work out most of their prior requirements regarding the harvest of plants and ground material simply enough with previously simulated realism effects," Charlie 46 replied. "However, I'm still rather unclear on why they have made it. Something about keeping the river from overflowing while also making a lake to use?"

The first two Bibarel sighed in unison while the third merely began to give a long and detailed explanation of flooding, river formation, and a number of other things Shawn was sure the pokemon could handle without his team. A-0 managed to get in a goodbye to its sibling and move the Troubleshooters a short distance away to extract.

\---

"Another one that would have solved itself given a bit of time?" Janice dryly asked upon their quick return.

"Probably not," Shawn hissed causing both pokemon to stop and turn to look at him. "More like the problem was easily solved by talking, but someone needed to start them on it before anything actually got done."

The older woman looked at him with annoyance. "And the translation for people who don't speak snake?"

The trainer looked up at her, and then to the side as Serperior flopped onto him. "We forgot to fix that hissue," the serpent stated clearly.

"We shall return in a moment to discuss the details," A-0 said to her comprehensibly before shuffling the pair back onto the pad.

\---

"Am I talking normally now?" Shawn asked shaking off a small amount of pixilated water.

"Yes. Landed in the river?" Janice noted frowning at the small amount of digital material dripping onto the floor.

Serperior gave a smug hiss wrapping slightly around his trainer. "It was another pun," A-0 said dryly giving the Grass type a glare. The Troubleshooting team proceeded to go over the situation with the Bibarel. A-0 gave more details about the developments relating to more accurately simulating the real world. Shawn briefly went over his thoughts on how they might need to train the Administrators regarding asking questions of their charges better. "Finally, here is Charlie 46's idea of what contractual issues are like," the Porygon finished floating the small green cube over to the team lead.

"I've got news about Delta 6's situation," she replied taking the small digital document to put into a specialized reader device on her console. "It isn't the previous contract running out letting someone new change things on her. Instead it seems that the group that has the contract had the project they were planning fall through. They were negotiating for additional boxes after the results for this one, but they didn't get the funding so now they want to use the box for a variety of types instead." The reader gave out a click as it finished uploading the data to her system. "If she was a Charlie we wouldn't be considering it as they are all specified, and ironically if she had been a Beta she would have already been setup for that kind of environment. However, Delta's are supposed to be new and adaptable so we are expected to smooth over whatever minor issues turn up." The biting sarcasm of the final sentence made Shawn flinch.

Janice briefly skimmed the document before turning to the item transfer box located on the wall next to her. A pokeball emerged and was quickly tossed to the trainer. "Good news is Delta 6 has the right idea of where to start, adapting to the least suited type for her current setup. That's Magmar, and he's first up to see if she can make some space for him, or at least keep her world from burning down if he stayed there."

"Are you sure I needed to be able to talk for this? You're just sending me back already and A-0 was the only one of us that actually knew what the smart one was saying," Shawn joked shaking the last of the dripping digital water onto Serperior who like a typical plant simply ignored the liquid.

"I'm honestly starting to wonder if I'm going to wind up with a pair of snakes instead of a trainer and his starter someday. If you do end up talking then that same reasoning applies, let the master of puns here get roasted while A-0 does the real work," she complained. "You're mostly there to play butler to him anyway."

"Huh, I was reading an article about that," the trainer said easily taking the familiar harsh tone of his boss. "There was this ancient civilization ruled by a kind of pokemon that kept what were basically trainers around as servants to take them places. It wasn't clear if those humans could speak pokemon or if it was pokemon that could speak human."

"Then you'll have role models to look up to. Magmar is one of ours, and the sooner we start on this project the better."

\---

The open plain they arrived in was much more detailed than that of Charlie 46, with the grass looking far more normal from a distance. "Troubleshooters! Finally, I've been so worried," a blocky sunflower said rising rapidly out of the ground nearby. "I've asked around my inhabitants about how fire works, but only one of them could make it."

"A Grass type that knows a Fire type move?" Shawn asked as Serperior smugly stuck his head in the air.

"Um, actually they just know how to light a campfire, their trainer taught them. But I did figure out the right way to mimic soil so they could grow plants," the Administrator replied happily, before turning slightly embarrassed. "Then I updated my plants to be able to burn and we had a small fire problem, and I don't know if those will happen all the time when we get a Fire type."

Serperior lowered his head to look at the ground and prod it with his abilities. "You've managed to make viable soil?" A-0 asked with interest. "Do you have the data on that in a format that the others could read?"

A small brown cube was her answer, the data package forming out of the dirt itself. "Here is the makeup, I've based it on the standard soil template that Charlie 3 distributed when we got started," she replied making a second one from a nearby patch of grass with a green color. "Without the plants it doesn't work quite right long term. Some of it needs replacing regularly and I included that there." The sunflower looked aside worried. "Which is one of the things I'm most worried about."

"We have a Magmar with us to help with that topic," Shawn said as A-0 collected the two cubes of data. "He's hopefully careful about his flames, and should be able to give you some advice." The trainer recovered the pokeball from his belt and looked to the Administrator for permission to release the pokemon. At Delta 6's wary nod he tapped the pokeball.

The Fire type appeared in a flash of light and looked over the area and nearby pokemon. He paused while looking at Delta 6 somewhat confused, cautiously moving closer and looking at the blocky form of the Porygon. The fire coated biped then turned to the pink and blue shape of A-0 and asked a question pointing between the two digital pokemon. "Yes, we are both the same species. This is the Box Administrator you have been brought to aid in the care of Fire type pokemon."

The orange and red colored pokemon looked dubiously at the surrounding area. He then asked the sunflower Porygon a question pointing at the grass. "Bare dirt? That would be preferable?" the Admin asked motioning to the ground a short distance away and causing a small circle of grass to disintegrate into pixels revealing the dark brown soil below.

Magmar looked at the still damp patch and shook his head, picking up a polygonal chunk of the dirt and heating it up. The material did not respond to the short flames traveling along the pokemon's limb, much to his surprise as he gave a questioning growl to Delta 6. "Dry out?" she asked confused. "Heat makes things less filled with water?" The confused expression that the Fire type gained at this reaction was familiar to the Troubleshooters, and made Serperior give a hissing laugh.

"You're going to need to explain things a bit more than that," Shawn told Magmar. "You have been told that you were explaining things to her right?" The Fire type nodded somewhat unsure. "The Administrators can't leave their boxes. They can't just go to the real world and see what it is like. Pokemon that live in their boxes tell them about the wider world to help make it easier to live in, and that also gives the Porygon some knowledge of the place they can't go." A-0 looked to the side somewhat sadly at the statement while Magmar looked at Delta 6 with some shock.

"It's fine really. A-0 has distributed some videos of his experiences, and we love hearing stories," the sunflower pokemon said attempting to reassure her new advisor. "Is he staying here when you head back or are you minding him?" she asked A-0 somewhat quietly. Given she controlled the world they were in Shawn was not surprised when Magmar did not seem to hear it and gave a brief look to his starter before the snake could interrupt.

"We are supposed to get an area setup for Fire types before we take Magmar home," A-0 answered sounding more like he was responding to her comment than replying to a direct question. "Do you have an idea of how much space that would take?" it asked the fiery pokemon.

From there they moved on to finding an area well away from the other locations Delta 6 had already crafted with and for her current tenants. The exact proportions of a given Box were partially limited by the hardware that created it, but it had been noted that the longer a Box was in use or the more intricately the Administrator made things inside of one seemed to have an effect on the size of the space. The Alpha series boxes had now all reached a size slightly larger than the Beta series had started at despite the latter having been made using better hardware. Charlie and Delta Porygon both had larger boxes than seen in the initial two runs, with even the initial resulting size being slightly larger than expected given the hardware available.

They spent a short while plotting out how much space it would take to give a small number of pokemon that burned things enough room, then a bit longer deciding on how much creating custom spaces would take if more types were given such locations. Delta 6 was somewhat discouraged by the resulting size, and asked for the Troubleshooters to see about what types of pokemon had similar requirements to hopefully reduce the amount of space she might need to dedicate to new habitats.

After a while they had cleared out a good sized area of the grass and dried the ground to remove the dampness that Magmar found particularly unnerving with how it still was not dissipating from his heat. With the area cleared they stopped to have a slightly early lunch, with the Fire type revealing that he was totally new to the experience of a digital world as he looked at the food produced by the Administrator dubiously.

"It's fine. Most of the power we end up using running these worlds goes into making this stuff," Shawn said picking at the odd tasting cubes. "Although the taste is going to be another concern," he noted towards the sunflower pokemon.

"The Grass types living here have given me some examples of foods they like or can grow out in the physical world," the Administrator noted. "That is one of the goals of getting my dirt right, to grow real plants. My plan was to ask newcomers what they liked to eat and then request seeds or cuttings to try and grow them here."

"That sounds like a good plan. Maybe we can see about getting you a bit of physical soil to work from," the trainer said thoughtfully as the Fire type began to eat while obviously disliking the taste. As a result they took a brief time to experiment to improve that aspect in the hopes that it would work as a general benefit to any future pokemon that ended up in the box.

After that the next few hours were spent going over more aspects of supporting Fire type pokemon, ending with bringing over a few of the current Grass type inhabitants to go over how their various activities reacted to flames.

\---

Magmar stepped off the transmission pad with a bit of a wobble. "Sorry, we ended up with a lot of stuff to cover," Shawn said to the Troubleshooter Lead as he followed behind with Serperior mostly hanging off his body.

"You aren't that late," Janice replied as she continued to work at her console. "Put Magmar back in his ball and read over this." A thick manual was lifted from her desk and tossed to the trainer.

"Another custom hardware manual, did Alan write this one?" he asked retrieving the Fire type and opening the cover. "Yep, hours of dense words for something actually simple. What's the occasion?"

She held up a small red device. "The development team finally finished modifying a Pokedex to interact properly with digital worlds in general, and our Box system specifically. It should give you and Serperior some ability to deal with issues without needing A-0 to hold your hand," she said looking at the plant snake. "He's going to be reading this too since he's honestly the brains of your team."

"One of us has to be," Shawn said happily in the face of Serperior giving an annoyed look at the increased workload. He paged through the guide as he walked up to return the pokeball. "Ok, this is stuff about doing my own editing, which is a bit bigger of a thing than I expected," he said with some worry as he handed the sphere over.

"Let me see that," A-0 said rapidly floating over to see. "This is literally the most basic admin functions," it said looking up from the book at the trainer somewhat annoyed. Shawn flipped over a large number of pages pointing at a more complex function. The Porygon read over the details alongside and turned to Janice unimpressed. "We are giving him this?"

"After both of them have read the manual and proven to you that they can handle having this," she replied setting the device down. "Alan for some reason thinks that will be done by tomorrow."

Shawn paged through the book some more. "Well, it's something to keep us occupied for the next couple of weeks."


	3. 1-01 Lost.Mon

\--- Lost.Mon ---

The blue pokemon floated just above a small device Janice was setting up next to her console. Shawn watched the Psychic pokemon bob up and down while Serperior was fiddling with their newly authorized Pokedex waiting to confirm the new connections were setup correctly. "Finally getting a mon of your own then Janice?" the trainer asked as the mechanical pokemon gave a ping indicating he was ready.

"Metang is going to be acting as a test computer and emergency combat support," she replied patting her new partner and starting the uplink. "With his help I should have real time communications into the boxes, and possibly even allow for data transfer without needing to move cubes in and out by hand." A slightly smug beep sounded out from the pokemon as it happily waved at her. "Alright, go ahead and try," she said to Metang.

"Test. Test. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," a mechanical voice said from the connecting device. "Are we comprehensible to humans?"

"Yeah, you're talking Metang," Shawn said getting a look from Janice.

"I can understand you, but don't use him as a reference. He ends up understanding pokemon fairly often," she said to her pokemon, with the trainer nodding in acknowledgement of the statement. "Can you view the other commands?"

"'Execute Program', 'Box Communications', 'Emergency Extraction', and 'Item Transfer' are currently available to us Ma'am," the Steel/Psychic type noted. "Shall we initiate any of them now?"

"We won't be doing anything with that first one until we have a better idea about side effects from it, but the other three are our main goal today," she replied turning to Shawn. "Charlie 13 has been messing with something, probably at the prompting of those Ghost types he's managing, and the development team wants us to investigate. We're going to try and keep in communication once you're in, send you a lunch that isn't made for the possibly dead, and finish with a test of the Emergency Extraction System."

"Any ideas on what he's doing that's causing problems?" Shawn asked moving towards the transport pad with Serperior close behind.

"Box containment integrity breaches, which according to them does not make any sense. Asking what he thinks he is doing is a priority and we will also be recording the results of the Item Transfers to compare to see if it is related, you know how they are about getting things done early for us," she said as A-0 floated next to his teammates on the pad.

\---

The trio appeared on a small patch of dirt and grass floating in a vast black void. Nearby other small platforms floated turned seemingly randomly. A short distance away one featured a small river that flowed out of a rock near one edge, off the other, and then bent at a strange angle when it left the platform to land in a small pond floating slightly above the starting point with the two surfaces of the water nearly facing each other.

Out of the blackness a shadowy form emerged, soon resolving itself as the Porygon Administrator of the world. His body was a long grey serpentine form with bands of flat plates colored red and black and blocky golden spikes and ribs along his length. "Sibling, it is good to see you," he said to A-0 with a fairly deep reverberating voice. "You have arrived with good timing, I was just about to contact you regarding an issue I've encountered."

"What exactly am I looking at here?" A-0 asked turning its head between his brother and the floating islands. Nearby Shawn and Serperior had moved to the edge and were tossing leaves over to watch as they twisted in the strange winds and gravity the Box possessed.

"You haven't been here since the stories," the other Porygon said with realization, the golden mask of spikes on his face splitting as he spoke. "My Ghost types were telling me about a world that some of them are from, the personal world of a truly ancient Legendary they called Giratina. I have attempted to mimic his shape and re-create his 'Distortion World' with my Box. So far they have liked the results."

Shawn was now being carefully lifted by Serperior's vines towards the closest platform, which was just close enough for this to let him drop just a short distance onto the sideways facing ground present there. A-0 looked back from the attempt to its brother with an unimpressed expression. "I see," it said floating to catch up with the two as the trainer held the vines tight so the serpent could pull himself over. "Give us a moment, I think we want the outside team to hear this too."

At this prompting Shawn grabbed his Pokedex and pressed one of the buttons on the front. After a moment the device gave a ping and then the slightly static tainted sound of the lab began to be emitted from its speakers. "Shawn? Are you hearing this?" Janice's voice called out.

"Yeah, loud and fuzzy. Recording it so the devs can go over that issue," he replied tapping some more buttons.

"We have some interference from unknown issues," Metang said somewhat more clearly. "It is increasing slightly," he said as Charlie 13 moved closer.

"The local Administrator was just about to explain everything he's done to the Box. I think that might help with the problem we are apparently just in time to deal with," A-0 said continuing to glare at its brother. The younger Porygon hesitantly explained the story he had heard of the Legendary pokemon and its world, then how he had mimicked the location.

Finally he reached the point related to the issue. "The thing I've been working on, something they say that Giratina can do, is to make holes between dimensions. I've been attempting some similar abilities that my inhabitants possess on one fragment that is rather separated from the others."

"You've been trying to do what?" Janice asked with dry anger. "Why would you even think that would work?"

The false-Legendary flinched at the reaction. "I was hoping to make temporary gateways between our boxes. The transmission system actually works in a way that resembles some of their methods, so I was thinking I could bridge the gap." He looked away with embarrassment and shame. "Only someone apparently got sucked in by one of my attempts, and I'm not sure how to get him home."

"Where is he from?" she asked exasperated.

"I don't actually know. I was actually letting the area recover when he came through because it was too unstable, my attempts were self disrupting too often. I think it was a delayed reaction to one of my better attempts," the Administrator replied sadly.

A loud sigh and a disappointed ping sound both came across the communications channel. "Shawn, A-0, Serperior, go find whoever ended up there and see if you can help. If we can't get him home this way then try and get him out with you. We're aborting the tests for today, too much interference in this connection and this is a higher priority," she replied tiredly. "I'm going to be trying to explain this fiasco to the Development team, maybe they have some ideas. Press the call button if you run into more problems."

The Giratina shaped Porygon then made a trail of small platforms the two ground bound Troubleshooters could easily hop across leading to their destination. This took a bit longer than the team was used to for traveling with the assistance of an Administrator. Charlie 13 informed them that he wanted to avoid bringing the distortions he had made too close to any existing locations, and that actually altering the area close to it was also somewhat unstable as a result of his experiments.

As A-0 reached the point where its vibration from a mix of worry and anger over the risks of such issues caused it to be slightly difficult to look at they spotted a larger piece of land covered in jagged black cracks with rippling distortions surrounding it. On the platform was a creature, a vaguely rabbit shaped biped with purplish-grey fur and somewhat feather-shaped tufts of hair sticking from its ears. It had a long thin tail ending in three tufts that also seemed similar to feathers with a series of belts wrapped around it just before they split. It looked over to them as they approached, and scrambled looking for somewhere to hide at the large form of Charlie 13.

"Stay back," he shouted at them with clear worry. "I'm warning you!"

"Huh, he can talk," Shawn said calmly as he opened the Pokedex and pointed it at the creature.

"Gazi, attribute Virus, level Rookie, error remaining data improperly formatted," the device stated mechanically.

"Hey! My name is 'Gazimon', not just 'Gazi'!" the creature shouted.

"You say the file extension out loud?" A-0 questioned curiously while still glaring at its brother.

"File? What are you things?" Gazimon continued shouting. "I'm going along just fine, then there is this weird black bubble thing in my way, and now I'm in some crazy broken place with weird blocky digimon that ask weirder questions."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to get you stuck here," Charlie 13 rumbled as the group moved closer. "Do you know what system you are from?"

"Another weird question. I'm from Server, in the Digital World. Ya know, where digimon live?" the rabbit monster said before noticing Shawn and blinking. "You're a human."

Serperior gave a sarcastic hiss at this. "Now now, we don't know if he's seen a human before," Shawn said jokingly to his pokemon in response.

"I can't tell if that is you understanding him or not," A-0 mumbled before floating in front of the digimon. "Is his being a human a problem?"

Gazimon looked between the four members of the group rapidly, but seemed somewhat calmer than when he had first spotted them. "Well, he is the least intimidating of you guys. Is he some new Digidestined?" he asked with a strangely worried tone.

This time it was the rest of them blinking in confusion. "I'm not familiar with that term. Shawn here is the trainer of the Digital Storage Solutions Box Troubleshooting team. I'm A-0, the Porygon of our team, and that is Serperior, Shawn's starter. To my side is Charlie 13 Box 113, the Administrator of the Box we are currently inside," the pink and blue Porygon said to introduce the group.

"A Box is an artificial digital world to contain pokemon that belong to a person or group that does not have the space to travel with them," Charlie 13 added waving his black limbs around. "As Administrator I have complete control over this space." This statement caused the color to drain from the digimon.

"C-Complete control?" he asked once again moving away from the group. The grey serpent floated backwards sheepishly.

"Don't worry too much about it. Right now we're looking to try and get you home more than anything. Any ideas A-0?" Shawn said trying to calm the digimon and hopeful that there was good news about getting him home.

"Unfortunately there is simply too much interference in this region to get any useful data from it. Direct scans like those myself and the Pokedex performed on Gazimon are the most accurate, but I am getting no useful data from the visible anomalies here. Unless Charlie 13 can better interpret this specific data due to his causing this issue we should bring Gazimon back to the real world where we can hopefully find the system his digital world is located on."

"The real world? With humans and everything?" Gazimon asked with a touch of excitement just barely noticeable over the obvious worry.

"Yes, we can move to a more stable portion of this box, exit to the physical world, and then find the digital world you are from there," A-0 replied motioning for him to jump to the platform Shawn and Serperior were currently on.

Reluctantly the digimon did so, finding himself confused at the total non-reaction of the human. The presence of the massive snake leaning on him maybe explained it, but the digimon had still been sure that humans weren't around monsters like him very often. The group made their way back along the path to the original pieces of land where the Troubleshooters had arrived.

"So, is there going to be a doorway or something?" Gazimon asked looking between the various pieces of land that were now visible. "I don't want to try and hang off some of these," he said mostly to himself.

"We were mostly getting out of that interference, typically we can leave a Box from anywhere," Shawn answered as he and Serperior repeated their feat of traveling between the two turned platforms of land, their change in gravity drawing a wide eyed stare from Gazimon.

"I will first need to perform a more through scan of you to make sure there are no issues with transport," A-0 said to the rabbit like monster. "The transmission equipment depends on certain data fields to properly convert its target, and with digital entities there can be serious side effects should it have to add that data itself." Gazimon held still nervously as the Porygon made a complete circle around him. "Type in particular is a tricky one, as those energies are what the device uses to keep the form together. You currently lack one," it said with kind regret.

"Wouldn't that be a problem for most humans too?" Shawn asked looking at them from a slightly sideways perspective as he stood level on the other piece of land.

"Humans, like all other creatures from the real world, have a highly complex mess of data that reflects a number of historic factors in their makeup due to various types existing in their ancestry. You for instance are nearly as much of a Grass type as Serperior, with data just shy of the threshold to express characteristics while he has a large mix of other types. Porygon are made with the Normal type, and when Administrators create items to send out they give type data to allow the machine to give the proper energy to manifest the result," the digital pokemon explained while his brother floated up behind Gazimon for a better look. "Without one defined the system will either not transport him at all, or worse could decide to assign one to him carelessly. Possibly greatly altering his properties as it made him into a Porygon."

The digimon was once again pale by the end of the explanation. "That doesn't sound very good."

"It isn't," Shawn said seriously. "I've looked up that aspect of Porygon creation before, and in those cases the result usually had memory problems at best."

"Which is why we should give you a type before we try. The other data should be fine, as it is either more detailed form definitions or data that does not need a physical form. Your body is actually a lot like a physical creature, so that aspect of the transition will likely be easier for you than it is for me," A-0 said reassuringly.

"So what exactly will giving me this 'type' thing do?" Gazimon asked looking nervously between the others. Serperior gave a hissing description that the other two pokemon followed easily before turning to the digimon to get his response. "Does the snake actually talk?"

"The Troubleshooter was saying that from appearances alone you look to be a Dark type. They specialize in trickery, illusions, cruelty, and generally sinister actions. The most notable feature of the type is their total immunity to the Psychic type and related powers," the false Giratina translated while changing his black tendrils into a demonstration. The panels broke apart like smoke into the shape of a Sneasel who proceeded to vanish from the front of a Pidgey only to viciously strike it from behind.

"Uh, yeah. I guess that sounds about right," the digimon reluctantly agreed looking to see Shawn's reaction to the display.

The trainer simply nodded and gave him a smile. "Well then that should work fine. If you're already that kind of 'mon then I doubt it will be that big a change," Shawn replied nodding, only to notice the strange look Gazimon was giving him. "Unless you don't want to be like that?"

"No! I'm fine being me, but I didn't think humans liked that sort of thing." He scratched at his head and turned to look at A-0. "So what do you need to do?"

The Porygon responded by opening a series of pink and blue panes in between the two of them. After a moment a thin blue glow wrapped around Gazimon while code flowed across the screens before disappearing with them in a black flash. The pokemon all simply watched him for any reaction for a short moment. "That should do it, integration seems to have gone smoothly," A-0 said nodding.

"Wow, you really were basically a Dark type already. That barely changed you at all," Charlie 13 noted.

Serperior gave another hiss to comment, causing Gazimon to jump away from the serpent's location. "You're talking now!" he shouted pointing accusingly at the Grass type.

Shawn flinched at the accusation. "I guess he's a pokemon now?" the trainer asked extrapolating from that change.

"That is actually a sign that it is safe to transport him, although I do apologize for it," A-0 said to the still spooked Dark type. "A more detailed medical scan can be done once we are out of the box, and we will help with any resulting issues."

"Let's just get this over with, I want to go home," the digimon replied exhausted.

\---

Four creatures could only just fit on the pad on exit, so the resulting pile up partially crushed everyone against each other and drew a sigh from Janice as she turned to look at the group. Gazimon quickly squeezed out of the mess in what almost seemed a practiced motion, while A-0 gave a number of annoyed beeps as it tried to get free. Shawn merely went limp to allow Serperior to maneuver the remaining pile to a better position with his coils.

"I take it you are Gazi?" Janice asked deliberately ignoring the mess.

"It's Gazimon," he replied looking between the other human and the floating blue rock creature that was next to her.

"You say the file extension?" she asked before turning back to her console. "That might narrow things down some. What can you tell me about the location of your digital world in relation to the real world?"

"Um, I think it just formed out of the world wide web," the rabbit like digimon said nervously as the others finished untangling themselves.

"The what?" she asked as she typed the phrase into the search feature of their database.

Gazimon simply shook his head. "You know, the internet? The big computer network connecting everything across the globe?"

"Somebody set up a global network? How'd they manage that?" Shawn asked casually walking forward as Serperior returned to his usual position leaning on the trainer's shoulder.

Gazimon simply stared at the humans, alternating between the two of them with an utterly confused expression on his face. "Let's try another tactic, do you know of anywhere in the real world that a connection has been made to your digital world before? We have a world map on the system you can look at if that helps," Janice tried pulling up the image and rolling her chair to the side so the digimon could see.

"I guess there was that mess in Japan, not quite sure where. Let me," Gazimon stopped himself as he got a good look at the map of the pokemon world. "What the heck is this?" he asked quietly. "I know I've seen a map of the Earth and this is not the real world."

The others paused at this declaration for a moment, then Janice turned to Metang and casually pushed the digimon away from her terminal. "Get me Charlie 13 and the dev team," she said to her pokemon while closing the image and returning to the data on Box 113.

"Hello? Is there a problem?" the deep voice of the requested Administrator questioned out of the machine's speakers.

"He doesn't recognize the planet, how far out can he be from?" she asked him with a hint of anger.

A long pause followed. "If I managed to fully reproduce the actual Giratina's abilities he might be from a totally alternate reality. I'm locking down those experiments and establishing a quarantine around that area. Can you contact the developers?" the horrified voice of the Porygon said from the speakers.

"Transferring you now. Find a solution," she harshly stated before turning back to the group. "Shawn, find a place for him to stay. A-0, take whatever scans you have to medical and get them ready to look him over." She looked the digimon in the eye. "Gazimon, if you don't recognize anywhere on that map then I'm not sure what we can do to get you home."

Blinking at the rapid change in activity the digimon watched A-0 float out of the room as the trainer began a quiet conversation of sorts with his starter. "What did he mean 'another reality'?" he asked worried.

"An alternate physical world, one with that 'world web' that your digital world is based on," she said putting a hand over her face. "There are a number of naturally occurring digital worlds that are known to exist. Our facility is one of the leaders in creating artificial ones, and our teams pay close attention to any others that are made, or any natural ones that have been found. If you know about humans, have an idea what their world looks like, and it doesn't match that map at all then you aren't from one of those and there is no way this world is already linked to yours."

"So I'm stuck here?" he asked drooping. "What does that mean?"

"Worst case you spend the rest of your life in this world. Given enough time and effort we might be able to get you home eventually. Best case you wait a couple of days for us to figure out how he got you here to start with," she told him. "We got you into this mess, so making sure you are safe and secure is our responsibility. Either by housing you here, or finding somewhere else that you would rather live."

"Serperior and I have some extra room in our apartment. It might be a bit cramped, and I'm not sure if you trust us enough for that, but we'd be fine helping you get on your feet," Shawn said, with Serperior giving a more detailed description of the room while miming out the dimensions with a mixture of vines and short leafy arms.

The digimon looked between the three of them somewhat defeated. "Alright, I guess that will work for now."


	4. 1-02 Settling In

\--- Settling In ---

Gazimon woke up in an unfamiliar room on a relatively comfortable bed of blankets. Confused he looked around the room, quickly spotting a bunk bed with a human on the upper level and the lower level dominated by the horrifying sight of a massive green snake that seemed easily large enough to swallow him whole. This made the lost digimon freeze in place long enough to remember how he had ended up in the situation. "What have I gotten myself into?" he asked quietly while trying to calm down.

The room wasn't big enough for three creatures in his opinion, and it was only how close the other two were willing to tolerate each other that gave the rabbit like monster any room at all the previous night. There was a board covered with writing that caught his eye as there was a new listing of 'make room for Gazi.mon' on there. "Why is there a period in there?" he whispered confused.

"You ssspook too loudly," the reptile hissed, deliberately lisping. "Did you sleep well?" Serperior asked as Gazimon gave a short terrified shout.

"Is he okay?" Shawn asked groggily from the upper bunk.

"I'm fine, the snake is just scary," the digimon said angrily. The confusion that was obvious on the trainer's face at that remark just made him give a huff. "It's kinda weird having a place like this to stay."

"You were wild before?" the two of them asked in an eerie synchronization, their tone more curious than an accusation.

"Uh, not really. I've lived with some mons, but Gazimon aren't exactly the friendly type. I mean we did side with the dark forces trying to take over everything," he replied somewhat nervously.

"So, just because you aren't a species that is nice to other pokemon you get pushed around?" Shawn asked looking over the digimon with consideration.

"We push back plenty thank you very much," Gazimon shot back somewhat angry.

"Your species are definitely Dark types, that sound pretty standard for them to me," Serperior noted helping his trainer down with his tail.

"Standard? You just have entire kinds of monsters that are evil like that?" the new Dark type asked still upset over the topic of his kind's typical activities.

"Well, there are Absol, who some people say cause disasters just by showing up in places. Given the kind of things that I've seen pokemon do that isn't too farfetched. Dark type pokemon in general are crueler than most pokemon, and villainous teams like having them around more because of it," Shawn replied with what the digimon felt was too much cheer over the topic. "Although I have heard Absol are actually sensing the disasters are coming and try and warn people."

"Villainous teams?" he asked focusing on the part that sounded closer to his own experiences.

"Team Rocket is the one we can most easily talk about. Criminals that tried to get rich by exploiting wild pokemon and stealing rare pokemon from people to sell to others. The reason we care about them in particular is they had this scheme where they were offering a rare pokemon as a top prize from gambling," Shawn looked seriously at the digimon. "The rare Porygon, which being an artificial pokemon is not found in the wild."

Gazimon thought of the two blocky mons he had met the day before, and how the group had been worried about him being remade into something like them. "Porygon are hard to make?" he asked.

"No, they are not," the trainer said somewhat sadly. "All you need is a materializer, some pokeballs, and energy. They made hundreds, each one claimed to be rarer than any other pokemon they were offering." The human turned away and Serperior curled behind him so he could lean back on the snake pokemon. "Thing is they are fairly fragile, especially when you care more about making one cheaply than anything else. Their abilities outside a computer aren't that impressive, and most people wouldn't have anything for them to do inside of one. So here were hundreds of supposedly rare pokemon, that needed more care than some random gambler would be able to give them, and who weren't really able to do much for their new owners."

"They are still trying to find people and places that can take care of the ones that were recovered during the fall of the organization," the plant pokemon added. "If we didn't need highly specialized versions of the pokemon for the Boxes we probably would have taken a lot of them." Serperior shook his head. "Even then I think there are a good half dozen working with the development team."

Gazimon could not readily think of an equivalent situation from his own world. Exploiting digimon that were already there was definitely the kind of thing he was talking about, but somehow making new digimon just to exploit them was something else. "You guys really aren't going to throw me out for being a Gazimon are you?"

"Not unhiss that means you need to break things or steal stuff, and even then that's only because we don't have enough room to hide you or your stuff in here," Serperior replied nodding.

"Just let us know if you need to do something sinister, that way we can get our cover stories straight," Shawn then said partially refuting the snake's response.

\---

Soon after the three of them arrived back at the Troubleshooter Lab. "Ah, you made it alright," A-0 said as it floated into the room with them, where they all saw an exhausted looking Janice and her still rather fresh looking Metang.

"We have good news and bad news," Janice said tiredly. "I'll start with the more positive aspects. Medical has gotten back to us regarding the scans we did yesterday. According to them your body is in great condition for a Dark type. Based on your conditioning alone you are somewhere between level 10 and 15, although we'd need to have more data from others of your species for a better idea about that." The digimon turned to look at A-0 slightly confused by the term, but not wanting to interrupt the rather distracted speech. "Their only concern is that those three moves you demonstrated are currently untyped. They recommend Dark for the basic claw attack you told them about, Electric for the paralysis breath one, and the pit attack is quite clearly a Ground type move."

"Okay. That's, something I guess," Gazimon said before quietly questioning Serperior. "Was that good news?" The snake pokemon snickered and pointed to Janice to keep him focused.

"The bad news is that there is basically no data from any of those scans that helps us with identifying your origin world for the purpose of getting you home," she continued not really noticing his response to her prior topic. "Charlie 13 and the development team were able to completely confirm that there is no hope at all of separating the various holes in reality he punched all the way out of the universe. So short of us finding the Legendary pokemon Giratina, one of the first four creatures to ever exist and the sibling of the embodiments of time and space themselves, we aren't likely to get you home." She turned to A-0. "Charlie 13 is on probation for this mess, and his box is under partial lockdown while the developers figure out a safer way to clean it up."

"Janice," Shawn said harshly, getting a slow but surprised turn of the Troubleshooter Lead's head "Go get some sleep. I can handle today, and Gazimon should be able to wait for you to be rested to go over any of his problems that I can't handle."

The older woman looked at the trainer for a moment, before turning to A-0 again. "Right, A-0 you're in charge." The Porygon beeped and nodded. "Fuzzy new guy, don't break anything important, get your attacks fixed." Gazimon simply blinked at the human. "Snake twins, don't break anything, ease up on the puns." The trainer and starter whispered 'twins' in the same synchronization from earlier. "I'll be back tomorrow," she started to say before spotting a clock. "This afternoon, when I'm not hearing things." Janice then walked out of the door in a bit of a daze and down the hall.

"Twins?" the two asked again.

"I'd disagree a lot more if I could think of a time when the two of you didn't act like you were joined at the hip," A-0 said floating over to Metang and delivering a static burst of machine code that went too fast for Gazimon to understand. The mechanically minded pokemon replied in the same manner. "Outstanding issues are a minor corruption outbreak in Box 30, a soil sample problem of some kind in 205, and the previously mentioned possible need for our new friend to get his moves clarified."

"Corruption?" Gazimon asked worried by the ominous term.

"If it was too bad then we would already be slithering into the Box at a run," Serperior commented briefly before letting A-0 explain in detail.

"A method we developed of more safely containing viruses and other malicious code that attempts to breach a Box. Rather than trying to capture it directly, possibly allowing it to infest the Administrator, it is given a basic form inside the Box. This usually results in simple static pieces of corrupt material, but if the code is more advanced or not cleaned up for a while it can become a primitive digital life form." The digital pokemon gave a sigh. "It actually works really well, which does not really make up for the suffering that went into building the system."

"Generally once it has its own form the local Administrator can deal with it themselves, but some stuff is able to hide from them or otherwise make it so they can't deal with it so then we need to help," Shawn added. "If this instance is something we have been called on to handle, but don't need to hurry to complete, then it is probably a few basic life forms that developed from some hidden corruption. We'd just need to track it down and clear everything out." He moved to the transmission console. "We should be able to work out what's messed up with your moves while we are working on that, and Delta 6's dirt should be able to wait for us to finish with those two things. Unless that's somehow gotten corrupted too?" Metang shook its body to indicate that it wasn't.

"Do you recall if Alpha 30 has any Ground type pokemon? I want to see how Gazimon's current paralysis move works before possibly introducing a limitation to it," A-0 noted maneuvering closer to the pad. "Serperior, would you mind traveling in your ball this time? The four of us are rather large and I'd rather not be in a pile with corruption around."

"Ball?" Gazimon asked. The snake pokemon rather than verbally answering him nodded at A-0 and tapped the button on the small red and white sphere held on Shawn's belt. The digimon looked on in shock as the serpent changed into red energy and was taken inside of the device. "What was that?" he asked pointing at the result with a scared expression.

"Pokeballs are a means of transforming a pokemon into energy so they can be safely and easily transported. It allows for the pokemon to expend no energy traveling themselves while also staying safe from environmental threats. That is the main use we have for trainers," A-0 replied calmly, earning a chuckle from Shawn. "The energy collecting pocket that it uses to hold us is why we are called 'pocket monsters'."

"So, that can happen to me now that I have that Dark type energy?" the digimon asked still sounding worried.

"Yeah, really it works in about the same way as this transport pad does. The biggest difference is that the pad has more power to grab the energy with, so it can get past the human resistance to being caught," the trainer added motioning for him to follow onto the pad in question. "If I didn't have that resistance I could get caught too."

"Given the things you've let us do to you that resistance isn't likely to last," A-0 said before looking over to the digimon still standing some distance from the pad.

"This is normal here isn't it?" he asked getting another laugh out of the human present.

"Some of it, but the other stuff is what makes the world interesting."

\---

The first thing Shawn noted on looking at the box was the presence of Magmar, who seemed to be annoyed with the small yellow bird-like set of polygons trying to eat his physical looking meal. The tiny shape was simply two dimensional colored planes with no fully enclosed areas. The rest of the Box was unusual for an Alpha's domain, with the structure appearing much like a blocky version of the interior of the DSS building.

"Greetings," a voice said over what probably was intended to mimic the intercom system, only with the result being too clear compared to the real thing. "I was hoping you could maybe not delete these ones? I'm trying to figure out if there is a way to stabilize their coding so they don't go ravenous like the others." The Fire type made his thoughts on the matter clear by looking at the visible speaker near the top of the wall and pointing between the creature and his food.

"Have you contacted the medical and development teams regarding storing these corrupted data creatures?" A-0 asked as Serperior was retrieved to once more lean on his trainer. "Or indeed done anything other than not bring them to our attention until they got out?"

"Well, it isn't like they are just some random attempt at a breach that I left laying around. I wrote this virus myself with the system generating them from it in mind," Alpha 30 replied somewhat strongly.

"They don't feel much like what I'd call a Viral," Gazimon contributed having picked up the yellow creature, which was still focused on getting the food being held by Magmar. "Honestly this thing almost seems to be a Vaccine digimon. Is it supposed to get rid of bad ones or something?"

"Um, yes actually. I was hoping to train them to hunt down any anomalous materials and entities, then report them to me and if needed clean them up. I thought it would be a good project to help the others with detecting and responding to such issues," the Porygon said through the system. "These are the latest test and they kind of escaped their containment area."

"Porygon Alpha 30 Box 30, have you contacted anyone at all about your plan to create corruption deliberately before going through with it?" A-0 asked harshly.

"Some of the dev team know about them," Alpha 30 confessed. "We started with twelve in this test and we're down to six. They are scattered around the Box, mostly going after food sources for some reason. Most of their forms have been degrading over time unlike the typical results of something of their complexity being converted."

"Serperior, get to work grabbing them," Shawn instructed his starter. "Try and calm down anyone who they've had a chance to mess with." He turned to the speaker ignoring the angry wordless beeping of A-0. "Do you have any Ground types that are willing to help with something?"

"There is a Sandshrew currently in the Box. He is working for the maintenance staff on electrical problems," the Administrator quickly replied with some relief. "There is one of the shards near his location somewhere, I will give an indicator of direction."

"What exactly is your current contract?" A-0 asked as the serpent moved off along a different path to hopefully collect the other rogue digital life forms.

"Currently I do not have an outside contract. This has actually been the case for quite some time, but that is mostly because I have been assigned storage responsibility for company pokemon," its sibling replied as they set off. Magmar seemed quite glad to have the yellow construct moving away from him, and Gazimon spent most of the trip working to keep the creature still.

\---

"Visitors?" a light brown armored pokemon asked as they turned a corner soon afterwards. In his hands was another of the digital creatures, this one a darker brown color, that was eating a piece of digital food. "Are you looking for this little guy? He was quite hungry." The Ground type picked up another piece of food from a small box on a counter and carefully gave it to the construct.

"Alpha 30, you have been feeding them, right?" Shawn asked the Administrator nervously, prompting both Sandshrew and Gazimon to move to give the yellow one some food as well.

"They are digital life forms, I thought that meant they didn't need any?" The reply came back more of a question than an answer.

"They do not have connections to the main grid!" A-0 shouted at its sibling. "I need to eat to stay alive! If you are going to make these things the least you can do is not starve them to death. Shawn, can you contact Serperior and let him know of this complication?"

"You should be able to reach him, he took the Pokedex." This reply was met with a level stare as A-0 opened communication with the device and relayed the message.

Gazimon watched as the very simple data creatures consumed the small blocks of food. The material was simply vanishing in tiny chunks as they tapped the triangle at the end of their face against it. "These are really strange. The closest I've seen to them are those things made from corrupt data that sometimes cause problems, but those always try and attack you to make more of themselves," Sandshrew noted looking up at the digimon. "These seem rather nice compared to them, if a bit hungry."

"Are you the Ground type we were trying to find?" Gazimon asked while the two constructs huddled closer together as they ate.

"You were looking for me? Yes, I am a Ground type," the pokemon noted with a bit of a laugh. "It's really odd seeing pokemon from far away, isn't it? You never can be sure what exactly you are looking at." The rabbit monster nervously scratched his head in response. "What was it you needed?"

"Gazimon here has a couple of attacks that need to have their type fixed. There was an accident and he's stuck with us for now, so we're making sure he gets any help he needs," Shawn replied quickly hiding the details of the issue.

"Apparently my poisonous Paralyze Breath attack might be electrical?" the digimon asked with notable confusion.

"Paralysis usually is," the armored pokemon agreed "but if it is a poison then maybe not. I can see why you need my help." The cheerful agreement made Gazimon look over to Shawn and A-0, who was quietly interrogating the trainer about just how he could understand the pokemon. "Let's get these little guys out of the way and we can see what you can still do."

Shawn took the two tiny digital life forms while A-0 went over the basics of what they planned to do for testing with the two combatants. Gazimon found himself rather perplexed by the easy agreement to fight, particularly how no one present seem to think that attacking each other was something strange to do in such an otherwise friendly context.

"Right, let's see this poison breath attack," Sandshrew said far too happily.

"Ok here goes," Gazimon replied dubiously. He proceeded to breathe out a mist of sparking gas onto the sand colored pokemon, who started coughing slightly.

"Who told you that was Electric?" the pokemon asked shaking himself out and easily taking a large pinkish fruit Shawn pulled from his bag.

"Someone who was sleep deprived and reading just the basics of the report," A-0 answered. "It does have somewhat reduced power compared to a simply Poison type move, around a fourth of the potential damage from my readings rather than the normal half effectiveness. I suspect it is currently acting as a dual typed attack with the added Poison typing removing total immunity."

"If that is what is happening he will want to pick one of them. Those two have a lot of things that resist them separately so it would have a lot of things resisting the damage," Shawn noted giving the digimon an explanation of the problems with the situation.

"It probably is trying to hit with both status effects, so leaving it alone might work too," Sandshrew commented.

Gazimon simply looked back and forth between them slightly confused by their discussion. "What exactly will you be changing about it?" he nervously asked A-0, who seemed to be lost in thought while looking at the beeping constructs that had calmed considerably after being fed.

"Looking over your data and the medical report I can do one of three things, or do nothing at all. Option 1 is to change the type into one or the other, which will cause some alterations to how it works. Option 2 is to copy the move, and then give you two separate moves, one of each type. The third option, and the one that is the most risky is to try and alter the move just enough to properly register as having types while still being both types," the Porygon explained. "The risky part of the last one is that moves are almost never multiple types, and I personally do not know of one that acts like two at the same time. So to get most of that last option in a safer way I'd say you should just leave the move as it is."

Gazimon looked between the armored pokemon and the group he had arrived in this Box with. "Okay, I'm just going to ask. What exactly do you mean when you say 'move'?" he grumbled. "Where I'm from everybody has their attacks all the time, and when you evolve you get new ones. That doesn't really sound like what you're talking about. This sounds like a lot of work to get these working how you expect them to act, and if I evolve it won't matter anymore."

"He isn't really a pokemon, is he?" Sandshrew asked jokingly. "Moves are ways of using your energy to accomplish a task. Generally pokemon keep a maximum of four moves trained to the point where they can use them in combat, with a bit of work needed to get ones that are out of practice back in shape for that. I currently am using Rollout, Poison Sting, Magnitude, and Fury Swipes." He gave a laugh at the face Gazimon made when he provided the list without any context. "For pokemon we can use moves we've learned all through our lives, no matter how we evolve. Although evolving can give you new moves based on any changes to your shape giving you new skills."

"You guys evolve too?" the digimon asked, then shook his head. "Nevermind, let's focus on the explanation. So these moves are generic things, not unique to each kind of creature?"

"Yes, and that will be another concern to you if you choose any of these three options," A-0 answered. "By giving you a type when we got you out of Box 113 we have given you the ability to manipulate your energy like a pokemon. You should now be able to learn appropriate moves, and in turn these moves should be available to you for the rest of your life."

"Along with giving you an idea of how to learn other moves by using the energy slightly differently. What type is he?" the Ground type asked now invested in getting Gazimon up to speed.

"Dark," the digimon answered for himself. "Is that new energy that I didn't have before, or did you just mess with what I already had?"

"You would be better able to tell than I could," A-0 replied somewhat regretfully. "When we were in that Box there was a minimal impact on your data, but the energy would have been added during the transfer. Everything in the physical world has some typed energy, with living things having more than nonliving materials. The Boxes try and reproduce what energy you would have in the outside world, but it could be inaccurate to a degree."

"Moves that match the user's type are stronger, mostly because they don't need to generate a different kind of energy while accomplishing the task. The attack might be closer to Dark typed right now because it simply works with your energy, it might be weaker because we gave your energy a basic form, or it might even be the case that you will be able to use it as a Dark type move with more power than was possible before," Shawn said shuffling the two digital life forms. The yellow one was focused on Gazimon while the brown watched Sandshrew.

"The claw attack looks to be the closest to the Dark type, the code in general is similar to a very specialized form of Night Slash. Which makes a lot more sense if your specific form is the only one that uses it," A-0 said nodding. "We should try that one next, maybe before deciding on what to do with the first."

Sandshrew gave a short laugh at the idea and waved at Gazimon to have him try it. He was still nervous as he slashed towards the armored pokemon, and he stumbled slightly as the strike seemed to be unusual to him in some way. The Ground type easily took the hit and quickly moved to steady his attacker.

"Whoa," the digimon said steadying himself. "Okay, I think I get what you mean. Ugh, I'm gonna tire myself out in no time if it is that easy to put my energy into that."

"You are not in the greatest of shape in general. I'd say you were some pampered house pet if you didn't act like you've been half starved yourself," Sandshrew noted. "Was that basically a Night Slash?"

"Close enough that I'm leaning to fixing the small discrepancies that make it not a Dark type move," A-0 replied. "The last one is in a similar state, being effectively Dig. The only one that is questionable is the breath attack, and at this point I think you'd be best just splitting it in two."

"Is everyone in this world battle mad?" Gazimon asked holding a claw over his face. "I'll try this one, hitting things with my claws seems like something I'll still be doing even if I become a Champion, but I want to see what happens to it before messing with my other attacks." A-0 beeped in acknowledgement and opened a pink pane to get to work.

"Battle mad? We're just testing moves, that's barely practicing," Shawn said somewhat jokingly. "Maybe we should have a real battle after we're done here to show you just how battle mad we are."

Gazimon flinched slightly at another black flash occurring over his form, then looked at his claws to see if there were any changes. Seeing none Sandshrew motioned for him to try the move again. This time he easily completed the move, with a hint of black energy coating his claws as they struck. The digimon blinked at the result, frowning at his claws. "It went back to normal? Maybe, maybe a bit easier to put my energy into, but that felt a lot better," he said looking at his opponent with some confusion.

"You hit a bit harder actually. Not by much, but I think you might have been having problems before if that is what it does normally," Sandshrew noted. "Come on, let's see this third move. If getting a type threw this one off maybe it did it to that one too, and having a busted move doesn't sound like a fun time."

"Alright, I'm not sure how it will work on this floor but I can at least try," Gazimon conceded. He quickly dug into the ground with some surprise at the ease with which he made it through the material. Rapidly he completed the attack by punching out of the ground underneath the target pokemon just barely hitting. "Okay, that was kinda weird, but I'm guessing that is another freaky part of your world."

"Using Dig was weird? I mean, it was a really fast Dig, but you managed to avoid whatever issue you were worried about the floor causing," the Ground type replied laughing a bit. "I'm probably going to evolve before I can pull something like that off."

"It would be more difficult in the actual building than in this digital representation. At minimum he would need to use more power to keep whatever he was tunneling through intact enough to travel through, and that assumes there was the space in it for the tunnel," Shawn told the combatants. "Is it feeling off at all? Too much or too little power?"

"It felt alright, no more off than the Paralyze Breath. Go ahead and change it though, it works great for getting out of messes and if I can keep these if I evolve then that would be a neat trick to pull." Gazimon looked away from the others at the wall. "Hold off on the breath though, I want to think about that one."

"I have much better data on the discrepancies now. It is a bit late for it, but I believe I might even have enough data to safely transfer one of your kind of digital life form into the physical world without the need to add a type," A-0 said opening a pair of blue panes. "Perhaps it might be better to call it the pokemon world given the context. I will be sending medical my findings so they can hopefully track any other side effects." Another flash occurred around Gazimon, this time brown in color.

"Hey, A-0. I've found three of the little Pips and got them some food. How are you guys doing with your search?" Serperior's voice suddenly said out of a nearby speaker. "Oh, wow that's the main intercom. Sorry everyone."

A-0 gave an exasperated beep and opened communication with the Pokedex. "We have two of them and just finished working on Gazi's moves," it told the serpent, earning a bit of grumbling from the digimon.

"Pips huh? Where'd that come from?" Shawn asked shuffling the two digital life forms around.

"Well they are small and they make this beeping sound when they find something they don't like, and I figured we needed something to call them," the Grass type replied, followed by a bit of a pause. "A-0, why can my trainer understand me?"

"He got one of my siblings to give him the ability again. Alpha 30 apparently has a working prototype of a general purpose translation for humans," the pink and blue pokemon replied. "We're moving out now, hopefully the last one is easy to find."


	5. 1-03 Digital Life

\--- Digital Life ---

The group left Sandshrew to what he had been doing prior to finding the brown colored digital life form. The newly christened Pips were acting fairly calm now that they were fed, and were easily following the pokemon, human, and digimon as they made their way to meet up with Serperior while hopefully locating the final construct. Moving down the corridors to travel across the full scale of the Box made for slow going, but the group wanted to check around thoroughly more than they needed to quickly join up with their companion.

A short while into their trek the two small creatures suddenly started peeping out loud with a strange mechanical tone at a nearby door. "Huh, I guess that is a 'pip' sound," Shawn said looking over the fairly normal looking door. "Think it's the last one?"

"Possibly, Serperior had to figure out what they sounded like somehow," A-0 replied moving forward to trigger the door mechanism.

The chamber that it opened into was rough brown polygons mimicking a stone cavern studded with black crystals. The resulting appearance was totally out of place in the otherwise clean corporate look of the rest of the Box. Cautiously the stepped inside Shawn picked up the Pips to keep them from running off despite their increasingly frantic chirping. "Your brother not finish remodeling or something?" Gazimon asked kicking a shiny black piece of material across the room.

"A-0? What's going on? You just went off my senses," Alpha 30 suddenly said from the hall behind them. Trainer and Porygon both tensed at the statement, causing the digimon to prepare for a fight with some worry.

"Your creations found a door. Start scanning our location now to see if you can map it, we will be looking for any hidden corruption," A-0 clearly said while producing a green light as he charged a Signal Beam. "Gazimon, keep alert. If you see any constructs like the Pips be ready to attack them. Most will try and infest your body to make more, or at least to take it over."

"Real reassuring. I'll try not to jump the gun and smash one of these guys if we do find it," the Dark type replied only for the group to hear a more distant peeping further ahead.

They rushed forward quickly, the two Pips with them chirping louder. Soon they spotted a green colored version of the small digital life forms, and a larger black and red construct chasing it. It was quadrupedal with most of its body being flat black plates shaped in a vaguely canine form. Red plates were present on the ends of its feet and in a small patch in the center of its flattened head, and the new creature lacked ears or a tail.

They reached the pair just in time to see the black and red construct successfully smash into the Pip, shattering the fragile creature into a brief flash of green fragments. Gazimon skid to a stop at the sight of this while A-0 fired off his attack immediately. The green beam attack smashed into one of the creature's hind legs, shearing off the red tip and sending it skidding backwards.

"Additional detection software detected- Error," the construct said twitching. "Deceive/Disable/Destroy detection software before proceeding. Error, too many processes detected. Error, extended size exceeds possible limits. Error, unexpected environment encountered. Error, function has not halted with repeated errors." As the virus rattled off its list of problems the two combat capable monsters moved to deal with it.

Gazimon found himself surprisingly angry at the thing for destroying the small digital life form. Its siblings had felt something like digimon, and with all the confusion he had experienced so far over the past day that had been like a small breath of home. He slashed his claws through the corrupt data violently, barely avoiding a larger and angry seeming beam of energy from his Porygon companion. The creature shattered much like its victim just moments before.

"Guys, keep ready, we have a problem here," Shawn said moving closer to the wall to put the two fighters between him and the exits.

"Error-" "Error-" "Error-" "Error, too many processes detected." A large cluster of the same black and red constructs advanced twitching from further down the path. They all focused on the group of Troubleshooters and began to prepare to attack.

"Sibling, if your Pips have been warning you about your massive infestation, and you haven't noticed, then I'm going to be rather angry with you," A-0 said more calmly than was typical for the digital pokemon as it sent its third shot into one of the constructs.

"Is this normal? Because I know you guys were sorta expecting us to be fighting things, but really?" Gazimon asked slashing one that jumped at him. "A small army of In Training digimon?"

"This is at least a week of this place being infested," Shawn replied kicking one that got past the pair to the side, the Pips moving around in his arms but not attempting to get closer or flee from the attacking corruption. "Which given they've somehow taken an entire area outside of the Administrator's knowledge isn't too surprising, but I'd have loved to know it before we split up."

A-0 unleashed an Electric Discharge attack into the small group that had gathered around him along with the skidding form of the one the trainer had kicked. The black digital life forms cracked in many places but a number of them were able to move back out of range allowing others to advance.

"Troubleshooters, can you hear me now?" Alpha 30 asked with the sound coming from the ceiling. "You are off my map, whatever you found was not part of the Box before. The entire thing is reading as made of corrupted code."

"Oh, that's nice," Gazimon complained shattering another corruption even as a pair of them knocked him backward. "We're in an evil area of doom. I'm so glad I came along."

As he finished speaking a burst of glowing leaves smashed through the crowd of corruption in a massive storm of plant material. "I see I cannot slither off without you slipping into a nest of trouble," Serperior noted moving slowly into the now cleared room. On his back was three more Pips, one red, one light purple, and a final with a darker green shade than the one that had been destroyed just a short time ago.

"One day, I'm going to use it being the end of a battle as an excuse to hit you for those puns," A-0 said firing another Signal Beam into a nearby crystal formation.

"I didn't hear any," Gazimon said, "but then again I'm still a bit shaken about the small army of kids."

"You mentioned 'In Training' during the fight," Shawn noted looking at the digimon. "Is that related?"

"The sand guy said you evolve?" the Rookie noted getting somewhat confused nods in response. "You know about the levels of evolution then, right? Baby, In Training, Rookie, Champion?"

"Your evolutions are standard enough that you are able to name the stages?" the Porygon asked with interest while targeting another crystal formation.

"Actually, if I'm understanding him right it matches what we see with digital life forms. Presumably there is an immobile egg stage?" Shawn asked getting a nervous nod. "Then a very basic stage that can't really fight, an extremely weak stage that is dangerous in groups like we saw here, a third stage that is around the power of an average pokemon."

"And a fourth stage with strength like fully evolved pokemon," Serperior added sending a few remaining leaves at a number of crystals nearby.

"Well, there's also Ultimates. They are the stage after Champions, but those are extremely rare," Gazimon added looking at the actions of the others with a great deal of worry.

"The 'Champion' we encountered was strong enough that we could just barely take it down. We lost Charlie 11 to it," Serperior replied seriously while moving from the now mostly cleared area around him to the other side of the room.

"Why are you destroying that stuff?" the digimon asked although he was fairly sure he did not want to know.

"It's fragments of the corrupted code. Bits that form from small viruses getting into the system or places getting exposed to one of those broken digital life forms. Eventually it begins to form new ones, which is how we ended up fighting so many." The trainer moved to hand the yellow Pip to the Dark type. "Unlike these guys they are unstable, those errors make them act irrationally and generally cause them to break things that even their original program would not want damaged. I'll admit it is sort of like those eggs of yours I asked about, but this stuff doesn't just crack open and let new life out. Broken digital life emerges fully formed from them, and then they start work on making another one." The Pip ended up fairly close to one of the crystals, which it began to chirp at.

With a sigh Gazimon picked up the creature and set it on his shoulder. "Alright, I'll help out with cleaning this place up."

"We don't need to worry about this place collapsing on us when we're done right?" Shawn asked placing a hand along one of the stone-like walls.

"The area is drawing energy properly and seems to be stable in of itself, Troubleshooter. The remaining corruption is simply masking my ability to properly detect it," the Administrator replied with a touch of sadness. "It must have been some time after we began the experiments to make the 'Pips'." The digital pokemon seemed unsure as he said the new name. "The energy drain that I had assumed to be their own connection to the system was apparently the construction of this new space."

"Sorry we couldn't stop them from getting the last one," Gazimon told the Porygon as he prepared to smash a crystal, the yellow Pip chirping at the material.

"I have killed more of them in ignorance than this infestation. If anything my mistake has been the reason for even that one's destruction, as if I had properly judged the energy I would have known that there was a real corruption threat." There was a solemn silence at this statement as they continued working. "My inhabitants are now approaching a number of the entrances to this segment, they will be assisting momentarily," the pokemon said still somewhat depressed.

"So, if you all have this set path of evolutions, what did you evolve from?" A-0 asked the digimon to change the topic back to something lighter.

"Well, I was a Pagumon before. There was this one Gazimon I knew who started as something else, but he didn't last long," the Rookie replied scratching his head. "I kinda remember back then, but it was a while ago now. It's pretty average for an In Training type, round ball with a couple of features. The only real notable thing is they look kinda like Gazimon."

"Something else?" Serperior asked looking over the rabbit like creature. "Like two different 'Training' monsters both shedding into the same 'Rookie'?"

"Yeah, exactly. That's how a lot of evolutions work, what comes next depends somewhat on what you are before and also how you were treated during that stage." Gazimon shrugged. "Not like we got the best life back then."

"Multiple forms that vary on exposure to things. Hum, sounds like Eevee. They evolve into a large variety of creatures based on how they are treated and any objects they interact with," A-0 noted. "Is there a standard way of achieving the next evolution?"

"Not really," he confessed. "For the most part it is just growing up. You manage to survive long enough and you reach the next stage. I've heard that training or being really strong can help, but honestly I don't know anyone who actually did that."

"That's the most common way for pokemon at least," Serperior stated, "and seeing how I've done it that way twice, so now you can say you've met someone who has." The snake winked at the Dark type. "That is the most common way we change. Not all pokemon evolve though, and even those that do vary in how they do it."

"For example the only way currently known for a Porygon to evolve is to send it through a transfer system with a specialized upgrade software package," A-0 said bringing up a blue pane that displayed a Porygon next to a disk in a clear plastic casing. Then it showed the pokemon and item being sent using the transfer pad, followed by a smooth bodied version of a Porygon emerging. "Which is actually a way that multiple pokemon can have an evolution. Magmar, that is the species of the first pokemon we saw when we got here, are also able to reach a higher stage using their own item in such a way."

"Is that something I'll need to worry about?" the digimon asked smashing a few small crystal structures with a swing of his claws. "You did change me into one of you somewhat."

His three companions looked at each other. "Yes, that is one of an entire mess of things you will need to be wary of happening," Shawn told him while rubbing his face. "Half of which we still don't even know about. Maybe we need to sit down and hear some stories from your world."

Gazimon looked uneasy at this idea, moving to another formation rather than immediately replying. "I'll think about that. I kind of want to know more about this place before I even try to explain what 'normal' actually is." Serperior and Shawn laughed at the sort-of-joke while A-0 merely nodded.

\---

It wasn't until several hours later that they managed to clear the entire area and get the Pips settled again. As a result Janice had returned by the time they emerged, looking somewhat more rested but still deep in the project she was working on. "So I take it A-0 had a lot to rant about regarding Alpha 30's little project?" she asked turning only to pause at their appearance.

"There was an infestation," the Porygon began. "My sibling unfortunately assumed that the energy drain caused by the corruption was actually his life forms connecting to the main grid. As a result we first needed to deal with nearly starved Pips, as Serperior named them, and a couple of dozen tier 2 corruption that had somehow managed to build an entire tunnel system without being found."

"Gazimon here also told us what the names for the tiers actually are," Shawn supplied nodding at the digimon. "Which we probably shouldn't officially use as tier 1 apparently is the 'baby' stage of digital monsters."

"I at least was able to get my moves mostly fixed," the Dark type added looking at his claws.

The Troubleshooter Lead's face grew grim as they continued with a detailed explanation of the previous events including a preliminary report on the hostile virus from A-0. "I recognize that situation," she replied looking towards Gazimon somewhat regretfully. "Team Plasma, a group dedicated to separating pokemon and humans, created a virus meant to attack pokemon storage systems. It is hidden inside of tainted pokeballs, and when the pokemon and ball is stored it activates. From there it generates a false signal of a pokemon outside of the storage limits of the box, which for most normal storage systems results in an emergency retrieval of all pokemon in the box." She turned back to her terminal and quickly searched for an article. An image of a blocky black creature appeared, this time with a short tail, ears, and in general more details than the constructs they had just fought. "The issue is that to mimic a pokemon enough to trigger the emergency process, it has to provide enough data for most systems to construct a Porygon."

"How stable is the resulting Porygon?" Shawn asked while Gazimon could only stare with wide eyes at the image.

"On the bad end of things. Plenty of minor errors in the end result that needed correcting, which was complicated by the discomfort and possible pain the pokemon feel from being inside a pokeball or computer system," she told the group while closing the article. "The worst part is that there isn't a good solution to the issue yet, so more are still being made whenever a storage system gets infected."

"That didn't look like the digimon we killed," Gazimon managed to say still looking at the screen.

"That difference is part of why we were worried about transporting you without proper data. The creatures we had to destroy are far less stable than those Porygon it typically makes, and I'm sure Janice is currently downplaying how fatal being created in that manner is," A-0 said floating into the digimon's line of sight.

"Two survivors out of sixteen incidents so far," she admitted. "All of them starting in better shape than what you described."

"But the Pips seemed fine," the digimon argued.

"Their programing would likely not function properly in a normal system. My sibling made them specifically to be converted by the security filter, and even then they were not the first attempt." The pink and blue pokemon shook his head. "I am sorry that you had to participate in that, and even that it had to occur, but we have no other option for dealing with these threats."

"I don't think I like your digital worlds." Gazimon sighed and leaned against one of the pad's arms.

"The next one should be better, Delta 6 is working on creating more advanced digital plant life while also improving the accuracy of our dirt for growing normal plants and such," Janice said tapping a few keys. "We can finish the testing of the new item transfer and emergency exit systems while you are there helping with her latest complication." She motioned to a few bags of topsoil that were stacked at the far end of the room. "She's requested more actual soil for experimentation, so you should take a bag with you and we can send the rest afterwards."

Shawn nodded and swung his pack around as he walked up to the bags. "Okay then, Serp put 205 into the machine," he told his starter as he packed the large bag into a pokeball-like sphere with a uniform orange color. Gazimon jumped at the sight of the packaging turning into a blue beam of light and disappearing into the container.

"You guys are sure this isn't just some other digital world right? Cause that kind of stuff is not normal," Gazimon commented shaking his head.

\---

Gazimon was starting to become used to the surprise of a new area appearing around him suddenly. The open fields of this latest digital world were dotted with a number of peaceful features, and a single location with a rumbling storm cloud hovering above blocky lightning rods set in bare polygonal stone.

"Oh, wow that's not the Fire type at all," Shawn commented as he let Serperior out.

"No, but it has worked out so far, and they seem to like the direct energy as a seasoning fairly well," the sunflower like form of Delta 6 noted from behind the group. "But you're not here for that, I've got that issue handled now," she chirped happily.

"Sister, it is good to see that you are doing well with that complication to your Box," A-0 greeted its sibling happily. "I'm hopeful that you have a simple problem for us?"

"Not a problem at all actually! I have a request regarding my experiments," she replied motioning for the group to follow here. "Who is this by the way?" she asked briefly pointing to Gazimon. "A new Troubleshooter?"

"Name's Gazimon, I'm a digital monster," the digimon introduced himself walking near the back of the group. "Your brother 13 got me stuck here."

"Does he mean Delta 13, or one of the other runs? I didn't think they had chosen a gender," the Administrator asked the group with obvious confusion.

"Charlie 13, who decided to listen to some of his Ghost types and punch holes in the universe," Shawn answers. "Gazi, you need to include that part or we won't be able to tell who you mean." The Dark type grumbled about the shortening of his name but nodded.

"Well, with numbers over 50 we would know you mean a Charlie, but that might change if enough of us Deltas get made," Delta 6 said nodding. "I'm sorry about my sibling causing you problems, we are still a bit unsure how to deal with other creatures. Still, it is nice meeting a new kind of digital life form." She ran on ahead masking a change in terrain with a short lived whirl of leaves that revealed an area with a variety of larger faceted plants growing in a mix of blocky digital soil and physical soil in short planters.

The sunflower digital pokemon hopped in front of a number of plants with large blue fruit hanging from them. Two different kinds were in soil from the pokemon world, one a living natural plant and the other was an example of the many digital plants present. "Here is my greatest achievement yet," the pokemon boasted pointing a the latter planter. "A digital recreation of the Oran berry bush!"

Shawn moved closer while opening the Pokedex to scan the berries, while A-0 simply opened a pair of panes and began to go over the fruit's code. "From initial scan it has the same food properties as a natural Oran berry. What is the massive execution procedure?" the Porygon asked halting the scrolling text at the start of a massive sequence.

"It is partially the same code as what the normal ones use to grow new plants," Shawn noted pressing buttons on the small computer. "The match program doesn't quite agree, but it looks like it to me."

"Yes, I didn't like how quickly the plants decay once they ran out of growing berries. It seems that they require significantly more energy and growth time to establish the plant, but it isn't tied to the resulting fruit's new energy so much that it cannot sustain itself without them," Delta 6 excitedly explained as A-0 shot a disbelieving look to his human teammate. "What I am really hoping for, and want you to test, is trying to grow one in the real world."

Serperior moved up to look over and poke at the plants. "They actually feel alive this time," he noted carefully plucking one of the polygonal fruit and looking over the area. "Do you have an open planter?"

"Shawn, get out the new dirt," A-0 told the trainer. "Your mon wants to try and grow one. Have your Grass types done that yet?"

"Yes, I've worked with them a lot on this. Let me get a new planter ready," its sister replied. "How much soil have you brought this time?" she asked while causing an open area of the plot of land to rise into a square box to hold the dirt.

"We're testing a new system, so we have one with us and a bunch we will try and send in straight from the transfer room," Shawn answered getting the bag out to pour into the new planter. "I'll contact Janice and get the others, or at least most of them. Sounds like we will need at least some back home for this."

"Hello, Shawn. Any problems yet?" the Troubleshooter Lead's voice said from the Pokedex, which had been given to Gazimon who was nervously holding the device.

"I guess we are going to try an grow a plant out there?" Gazimon asked more than answered. "I'll let the snake figure out how much of that stuff we don't want sent, but the local god apparently needs more?"

"We try to not call them 'gods' or Legendary pokemon," Janice said dryly. "Have one of the others mark out an area to send the first bag. Metang will then let you know when we have it locked in, and you can request the transfer test."

Serperior shook his head at the level of dirt that had resulted in the planter with a mumbled complaint about packaging standards before moving over and having the digimon input the proper information regarding a small area Delta 6 cleared and marked out with a box of bright yellow colored polygons. The serpent instructed Gazimon in how to perform the action, making the Dark type look between his current teammates with a bit of confusion as they included him in the activity.

"Designated area identified, initiating verification pulse," Metang's robotic voice said through the Pokedex, and then a flash of white squares appeared forming a large box at the specified site. "Confirm area scaled properly and empty."

"We're good to go Metang," A-0 said while they all stood a good ways away. The box of squares appeared again, this time a blue color and remaining for a short time. Then the effect vanished revealing another bag of topsoil, which the Porygon immediately scanned with one of his panes. "Transmission confirmed, we're moving it off the destination now."

"Result registered, standing by for next transmission."

"Keep two bags over there," Serperior said to the team back in the pokemon world. "It is actually one and a half for this plant, but I don't think we want to mess with sending half a bag yet." The group could just hear Metang translating as they moved the first to the side so they could continue sending the bags into the Box. The pile was quickly relocated from the pokemon world to an area at the edge of the small garden.

"So, can you just make this thing grow up in the blink of an eye or something?" Gazimon asked the Grass type as he finished preparing the new planter.

"I could, but I would tire myself out rather quickly doing so. I want to see how it reacts to acceleration more than anything. That way I can get a baseline of how it might work out in the pokemon world," the pokemon replied carefully planting the digital Oran berry in the soft soil. Nearby Shawn aided Delta 6 in explaining her plan to Janice, the Administrator somehow talking even more excitedly now that she was in direct contact with someone outside the Box.

"Do you think someone has already tried accelerating their growth?" A-0 questioned looking around at the other plants.

"Third from the left," the serpent said pointing at a plant that had berries growing while being slightly smaller than the others.

"You can tell that just from looking at it?" Gazimon asked. "How do you know it isn't just a runt?"

"There are a number of side effects, one being that the plant is weaker overall," the Grass type noted sliding over to poke at the example. "Particularly deficiencies in the root system, which doesn't have the time to tie its energies into the ground as it usually needs to. A more powerful Grass type than me might be able to do that for the plant as well, but that would likely be the work of a Legendary pokemon." Serperior sighed. "Although if these do it at all is one of the things I'll need to check when we start it back out there." He slid back and extended a vine down into the soil next to the newly planted berry. "A-0, can you get me some water? Digital should work fine for this."

A thin stream of blue squares fell onto the planter, causing the color of the soil to darken. The snake pokemon motioned for the digital one to stop, and then sent energy down his vine causing it to glow with a green aura. Nothing seemed to happen for a few moments, until a thin square pyramid extended up from the dirt. This then grew taller and thicker as it changed to a darker color. Next a single 2D green leaf extended from the plant, and Serperior halted the glow. The snake hummed turning his head to look at the plant.

"Well, how'd it go?" Gazimon asked. The serpent merely coiled around the planter more and hummed again.

"Serperior, will it work or not?" A-0 asked somewhat annoyed. The Grass type slid around it again and hummed a third time, now obviously joking. "Serperior."

"It will grow, but it will need a lot of monitoring and a Grass type to keep it alive. We should bring back any fruit that result to compare to the original code, I suspect just the work keeping it alive will produce great changes," Serperior finally said. "From what I can see here the Oran berries it will make are either going to be only three quarters as effective as normal, or fifty percent more effective, depending on the exact complications. If they do end up more effective there won't be as many, and the plant will still end up decaying when we collect all of them."

"I hope not," Delta 6 said moving back over. "I worked really hard on getting that part to work here, and I don't want either of those problems to happen." She shuffled closer to look at the newest plant. "Wow, that's quite a bit bigger than my assistant managed."

"Janice wants Serperior and I to try the emergency exit program while Gazimon and A-0 take the berry back the normal way," Shawn said moving up just behind the Administrator. "That way if we do get combined nobody would notice."

"I'd notice," A-0 said darkly, not at all amused by the joke. "Is there anything else you need from us right now?" it asked its sister. She shook her large flower shaped head smiling.

"Alright then, ready for emergency exit test Janice," the trainer said tapping on a button while Serperior slid to coil around him.

"Prepare for exit in 3, 2, 1, initiation," Metang said over the communication, with the two vanishing in a bright flash as the countdown ends. "Please wait," the machine pokemon said, and a short time later continued, "Confirm success. The snake twins have safely arrived in the pokemon world." There was a paired shout of annoyance just barely audible.

"Are you ready to head back now, Gazimon?" A-0 sighed looking out over the peaceful landscape. "Or do you want to see more of a typical Box that isn't infested?"

"I think I've had enough exploring for a day," the digimon said, getting a nod from the Porygon. He moved to pick another of the digital berries, taking it off with a bit of surprise and holding it awkwardly. "Hey, this thing's squishy!"

"It's a berry, of course it is squishy," Delta 6 said with a bit of a laugh. "Just because I can only manage to make it look blocky doesn't mean I can't make it feel right." The sunflower pokemon bowed to the remaining pair. "Thank you for your help and good luck with the berry!"

"Your welcome sister. Do you have a good handle on it Gazimon?" A-0 asked getting a nod. "Then let's go home."


	6. 1-04 Oceanic Issues

\--- Oceanic Issues ---

Gazimon looked up from his bed of blankets on his second day in the pokemon world. He had woken up a short time before, but this time had managed to stay quiet enough to not wake the massive serpent pokemon that seemed to dominate much of the room.

The large pot they had planted the digital Oran berry into was sitting in the path of the single window of the room. They were planning on moving it back and forth between this room and one with better lighting until Serperior decided it would survive on its own. The board had been updated with a few new items for the plant, along with a few food items that the digimon had found himself liking during the meals they had him try over the past two days.

"You spook to loudly," Shawn's voice said from the top bunk of the duo's bed. "Although you sit around quiet enough."

Gazimon looked at the human incredulously. "Maybe you two are just too good at listening." The colossal snake gave a chuckle and shifted at this response.

"You could stay elsewhere. We aren't binding you to this nest," Serperior laughed. "Alpha 30 should have room for you, and Janice did offer you an apartment of your own like A-0," the plant pokemon continued moving over to check on the berry.

"We can adapt," Shawn said once his partner stopped speaking. Then he turned to the now quite full list of groceries. "Maybe see about heading to the store after we are done with the day. Get you out and about to see what you need."

"I've been thinking on what happened yesterday, and some of the things I told you about. Back when I was a Pagumon I did a lot of things, and was already a bit of a jerk," Gazimon said rather than directly respond to their assurances. "Those things we had to kill, they were in pain weren't they? Something broken with more power than brains."

"Yes," Serperior replied sadly and seriously. "That's what those errors they were talking about meant. The thing they were supposed to be doing wasn't possible, and they also weren't able to deal with being alive." The serpent made an undulation that was clearly the equivalent of a shrug. "That's part of why I actually named the Pips. They were actually alive rather than something that was broken and unable to do anything other than breaking others."

"I can't say there aren't intelligent ones," Shawn added afterward, the ease at which the two seemed to play off each other while the trainer did not understand the snake still confounding to the digimon. "The bigger ones, those that are at least as strong as you, tend to be able to plan and adapt to their errors." He easily grabbed onto the Grass type's tail to allow the pokemon to lower him to the floor. "They are still single minded, usually trying to find a way to complete their program's intent anyway. They also spread, creating more of the shards and smaller creatures. The result is an even more dangerous creature we cannot hope to contain even if we could reason with it." The human moved up to look Gazimon in the eye. "You don't have to help out if you can't handle killing them, and if you can't be around us because we have to we will help you find somewhere better. I'm sorry I can't give any better offers."

"I'm not even sure why I care so much. Not like I was that great of a guy before," Gazimon said matching the gaze. "But that is exactly what I was thinking about, there is a big difference between what you are fighting and what I am. They could be, and I guess I want to help keep you guys from smashing them if you don't need to. Maybe see how far they can go." He turned to look at the pot. "If I'm stuck with you guys then I want to make sure you aren't messing things up."

"So, does that mean you want to stay here, or is that a really complicated way of saying you want to live in Box 30?" Serperior asked trying to lighten the mood.

"I'm fine with staying with you two idiots for now," Gazimon sighed shaking his head. "What are we doing today?"

\---

"After you found that nest of corruption in Box 30 we ran a full scan of the power usage of all Boxes in order to check if there were any issues that might be more hidden corruption," Janice started off with an explanation some time later in the Troubleshooter Lab. She was still somewhat tired looking, but considerably better than the day before. "The result was ten Boxes with higher than anticipated values. Four were projects that the Administrators had started without letting us know, with two more being known projects."

"We are having them double check the exact details of the increase of usage, correct?" A-0 asked floating next to Metang. "Alpha 30 had thought that Box 30's increase was part of the stable corruption project."

"Those six have confirmed that they have proper usage. I had separated out the one Box that had a project that wasn't the full draw already, and they can handle the corruption they found," she responded dryly. "Two of the remaining three have similar success from this endeavor. So including Box 30 we have four sites where this scan has helped."

"I take it that last one is a bigger problem?" Gazimon interrupted from next to Shawn and Serperior. The snake pokemon was for once not acting as clothes for his trainer, but that was mostly so the large potted plant could rest within the coil of his body that was carrying it.

"Charlie 80 Box 180 is using well over twice the power it should be, and the response I got back was unacceptable," Janice replied darkly. "So I looked into the contract to see if the users had added anything, and confirmed he is a typed Box for a number of trainers to use. Specifically he stores Water type pokemon for trainers willing to pay for the service." She turned back to her console and brought up a number of text files. "Apparently there has been an issue for some time with increased transfer times and confused actions from the pokemon that were stored there."

"If we've been having problems why weren't we sent in before?" Shawn asked already looking like he wasn't fond of the answer.

"Because I had to inquire myself regarding their use of the Box for them to tell us. This has been happening for over a month without us having any clue." A chart appeared on the screen showing the climb in power usage. There was a fairly sharp increase followed by it leveling at a much higher point.

"The issue is going to be stable, or at least mostly stable," A-0 commented avoiding Gazimon's gaze. "It has either killed Charlie 80 already and managed to mimic him pretty well, or we should be able to safely get him back to normal." There was a sad tone in the Porygon's voice.

"That is likely. The pokemon who have been retrieved have appeared to be alright, the biggest issue is them learning moves they didn't know previously or having trouble with ones that had known," Janice said moving the screen back to one of the text files. "Considering this service is in some ways closer to a day care than standard box storage the trainers were all understanding of this complication, but the specific moves learned are unusual. I'm going to have the emergency exit program ready the entire time you're in there, and we will have Delta 2's medical facility available if we need a safe place for you to fix any problems."

"What did the terrain in the Box look like last time we had someone there?" Shawn asked looking over the list of moves learned. "What would a Swampert using Withdraw even look like?" he mumbled at one entry.

"An endless ocean with a number of small islands. I'll try to put you down on one of those," Janice answered moving the document to better see the entry. "I've asked the rest of the staff and Alpha 30 if we have any strong Water types to help out if this goes badly."

"I can swim fairly well," Serperior noted poking Gazimon to have the digimon translate for him. "Combine that with my type effectiveness and maybe an alteration to how we breath and we should be good. You guys don't mind having some extra gills, right?"

The Dark type digimon looked incredulously at the Grass type as he translated the last part. "Really? Is he serious?" the Viral asked. "He's serious," he concluded from the unsurprised reaction of the others.

"I'm half tempted to send you to Delta 2 now so she can do it before you get there," Janice replied looking at the team. "But it is probably best to get a basic idea of what is happening first. Stack up on the pad, we shouldn't risk the time needed for anyone to get out of a pokeball." A-0 beeped with some annoyance as they all clustered on the pad with Serperior threading himself between them.

\---

The first thing they heard before the flash of the transport had even cleared from their eyes was a Porygon's voice dully speaking. "New entities detected. Even number confirmed. Initiating Heart Swap procedure." After this the four of them all landed hard on sand-like polygons.

Gazimon found himself seemingly skidding on the air before crashing into the ground. His body not moving very much at all and feeling quite strange. Opening his red colored eyes only increased his confusion as he saw his body laying face down in the off-white shifting surface just a short ways off. Behind the rabbit like form the human and snake members of the team were leaning heavily against each other. The former's eyes were now red and slit while the latter had round blue eyes that did not match the serpent's face.

"Gah, arms?" A-0 asked from Gazimon's form, his voice still recognizable and the digimon's eyes now mostly white with simple black pupils.

"What, what happened?" the former digimon asked attempting to extract himself from his location. This involved pushing off the ground in an unusual way that did not involve any limbs and frightened him as he did not know how he had learned to do it.

"Apparently my brother is mimicking a Manaphy. They are able to switch the bodies of different people around," the former Porygon said looking over its current form with obvious distaste. "Ugh, there's a reason I stay in the default shape. Limbs just aren't worth it."

"I have to agree with that," the human body said with Serperior's voice taking a step towards the pair of digital creatures. "I was quite sure my time having legs was over."

"Hey now, just because these arms are stubby doesn't mean they aren't there," Shawn said from the serpent's body, moving around and holding out a leaf limb to demonstrate.

Gazimon and A-0 shared a look as they stumbled to join the others on unfamiliar forms of movement. "So, are we sure this hasn't happened to them before?" the current Porygon asked while catching himself from a brief moment of unsteadiness as the sand-like ground shifted with their movements.

A-0 ignored the question to look over the area, its expression growing more angry as it did so. The others noted how well such a face fit on the body, but also how it differed from the more timid Gazimon. The good sized island they had arrived on was mostly made of the light colored solid digital material, with only a couple of large stones near the center giving any real terrain to the location. The nearest island other than their arrival point was only barely visible a good distance away. "I do not have access to admin functionality in this body," it noted looking out towards the shore.

The other pair of switched individuals paused at this declaration and immediately Serperior grabbed the Pokedex from the belt of the human body he was inhabiting. "Should I have Janice pull us back now, or wait to see if we find anything?"

The Gazimon body flexed its claws and sniffed the air. "Ser- Shawn, can you fight like that?" A-0 asked the current wearer of the snake body.

The trainer first replied by rapidly slashing the sand with a long vine that flashed out from just under his arm. A short trench appeared than then settled in a flowing display of polygons. "Nowhere near as good as Serp, but I think I can manage. I say we keep our finger on the button and check out the water."

"First I'm making sure we are still locked in despite this," the current human stated waving an arm across the group. He then began to rapidly tap on the Pokedex admin functions.

"I for one am barely walking, floating? Whatever it is I'm doing right now," Gazimon said nervously. "Also there is all this stuff I can see around me and a bunch of weird feelings I can't quite name. What is that?"

"My administrative functions most likely. My body is capable of a great deal of data editing," A-0 answered as it started walking towards the shore. "Which covers a lot of things that we were hoping to have available in case a problem arose."

"Requesting status update. Come on guys, let me know you're okay," Janice said from the Pokedex. "For some reason I'm getting a confirmation sequence for my lock on you."

"Shawn's a snake, I'm a trainer, A-0 is fuzzy, and Gazi is floating. We're kinda messed up," Serperior said nodding at the device. "Stand by, we're trying to get a better idea of where the-" The currently human member of the team cut off as a wave swelled nearby, countless shapes barely visible inside of it as it fell. "That is a lot of corruption. Janice, gives us three minutes at most, this is going to be a bad one."

The water around them was filled with two dimensional domes of light blue polygons, all of them floating around with visible purpose. A dozen had been swept onto the shore by the wave, and were making their way closer.

"You have two minutes before I pull you all out of there, and you're only getting that long because now I need to double check your work," she angrily told the group as the constructs advanced.

One of the domes made a harsh broken buzz sound and seemed to stumble. "Unknown pokemon detected, not in standard database, not in Legend listing, acquire for analysis," the whole group hummed before another gave the buzz and twitched out of formation.

"Uh, I know this is short notice, but how do I fight in this thing?" Gazimon asked spinning his polygonal body slightly.

"I think right now they are after me," A-0 said just before one launched itself at the rabbit monster. The body swapped Troubleshooter casually sliced it in half. "But for future reference the foremost facet of your right pylon has the code for Signal Beam, just send energy into it." Another two shot forward, one easily caught by another swipe from the current digimon and the other split by a spinning leaf sent from the grass snake.

"Hostile reaction detect-" one of the domes began, only to cut off with a twitch and buzzing sound. "Hostile reaction detected, escalating acquisition protocol," the rest droned afterward while continuing to advance. More were streaming out of the water continuously.

"Shawn, how do you act so calm while being stuck unable to fight?" Serperior nervously asked the snake pokemon while moving to the center of the group.

"Honestly I had some lessons in fighting with my legs as a kid," Shawn replied whipping a vine through an advancing cluster. "One of my uncles had a Blaziken who taught me. As you can imagine it is real helpful right now," he continued sweeping his body across the next line of foes.

Suddenly a large shape emerged from the water with a splash. The spray of pixels cleared to reveal a massive purple double shelled clam pokemon covered with large spikes. The sphere like face of the Cloyster was set in a neutral expression with glassy blue eyes. Latched onto the lower side opposite its large forward facing spike was one of the dome shaped corruption that were continuing to advance beside the new foe. "Status effect unit deployed," the pokemon and digital life form both said in a dull tone. "Delaying retrieval process while in use."

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't manage accuracy in someone else's body," Shawn said with notable concern. "Serp, tell me we can evac now."

Gazimon had just barely managed to create the glow of an attack as the obviously mind controlled pokemon shot out a colorful beam that froze the ground it impacted. The surprise of this set off the current Porygon's attempt at a Signal Beam in a wide cone over one of the few spots free of any foes. A-0 easily grabbed the Porygon and drug him closer to the others while Shawn sent a brief burst of leaves around them carefully making sure it did not extend to the Water/Ice type.

"Initiating emergency evacuation," Metang said from mid air, and the four Troubleshooters vanished from the Box in a bright flash of light.

\---

Shawn landed heavily on the pad, his long form laying across far more of it than he was used to. There was a slight clinking sound of Gazimon failing to hold himself up now that they were back in the pokemon world. Serperior in Shawn's usual body sat nervously on his own typical form while they waited for the flash to clear from their eyes.

"Ugh, is this what having a real body is like? It does not seem worth it," A-0 noted shaking what had been Gazimon's head.

"I take it from the voice that you are all in each other's bodies?" Janice asked as Metang gave a short series of beeps.

"Seems that way," Shawn hissed. "Unless I'm just imagining being a snake," he continued helping his starter stand.

"Knowing that is what you sound like when you speak Serperior is only making this worse you know," she replied to the current pokemon's unintelligible sounds.

"Uh, I didn't understand that," Shawn's former body said with his starter's voice. "Which is kinda a new thing for me, so I think I get why he's always asking to understand, uh, pokemon." The human shook his head and mumbled, "Weird having to say it like that."

"Why is it harder to fly now?" the Porygon asked barely lifting himself off the floor. "If this is being a Porygon I'm real glad you didn't let it happen to me before. Kinda wish it had stuck." He wobbled a bit and clearly was straining to keep at a higher level.

"Very funny. We have a bigger problem. It took over one of the inhabitants with its horde of corrupted jellyfish," A-0 said shaking its arms out. "As for flying, there should be a gravity canceling program in the rearmost face of your left pylon. It auto executes in a digital world, but out here it needs constant energy."

Janice turned to face them, her eyes darting between the four mixed up individuals. Serperior and Shawn had somehow managed to get back into their usual mutual leaning configuration, with both seeming fairly easy in each other's skin. Gazimon managed to use the new information to lift himself to a better height in the Porygon body, but was still wobbling heavily. A-0 was standing rigid in the digimon's form with an angry frown. "Can you manage this situation like this, or do we need it fixed first?" she asked.

"There are simply too many targets, and we are going to need accuracy. While I can manage with this body we really need Serp's skill to use it effectively enough to resolve the issue. And you can't understand me so can someone translate?" Shawn said, realizing midway through that he was only able to speak to pokemon.

"He's probably just said it, but I need to be back in that body. We need a heavy hitter and some precision to go with it, and it will probably be faster to find out how to switch us back compared to training him up," Serperior said after his trainer finished, getting a nod from the snake pokemon.

Janice rubbed her head and turned back to her console. "Right, just looking at all of you is confusing. Delta 2 is already aware there's been an issue and is waiting for you," she told them tapping the controls. "Hopefully she can correct this and we can get back to fixing the mess that caused it."

\---

"So, why is my eldest sibling currently a fuzzy rabbit monster?" a large pink Porygon asked waddling from a doorway shortly after their arrival. The Box itself was a high tech medical facility, with clean metallic walls and a mixture of physical and polygonal digital devices lining the room. The pokemon herself was an egg shaped arrangement of flat surfaces, with a smaller egg shaped bump at the front of her body that featured white for its upper half and three tube like extensions on each side of her head.

"Charlie 80 apparently figured out how to mimic Heart Swap and this is the normal body of the guy in mine," A-0 bluntly told its sister. "Sorry about bringing my bad day along, but any chance you can fix this?"

She sighed heavily and began to walk around them as a number of machines started moving closer seemingly on their own. "Give me a moment to get some scans done."

Gazimon hovered nervously near the edge of the group. "If you're Delta 2 why is it Box 201? So far most of you seem like your numbers match your names, or at least the one's I've heard about do," he asked looking away.

Shawn slithered closer and waved the others off from answering. "Unlike the first three lines the Deltas are being created one by one as new Administrators are needed. The first of them, Delta 1 Box 66, was needed as a replacement for Beta 16 Box 66 after his death so that the Box could still be used," he explained while the others began the scanning process. "Delta 2 Box 201 was then made to support this medical location so we had somewhere specifically to deal with corruption that got into pokemon staying in the Boxes."

"Typically we spend weeks with barely anyone needing to come here, but when we have problems entire Boxes of pokemon can be sent through here all at once. You actually had an appointment later in the week to get a far better scan done," the Chansey shaped Porygon said as she approached him. "The main medical staff wanted to see if there were any obvious effects in the real world before trying to find detailed issues. We can see how that worked out." She made a motion with her short arm and a small collection of devices made a slow circle around him. Then she went around the group a second time, and finally a third. "I have the results, and I hope whatever trouble you are in can keep because this is going to be a bad one. The more time I can analyze this the better."

"Any idea why I can understand Shawn in digital worlds but not the pokemon world?" the human asked. "Seems like a strange thing to have happen."

"If either of you were Psychic you'd be able to manage anyway. Some of this code is having you use each other's language knowledge, or maybe look back at your own?" she questioned frowning. "This is a mess, with at least half of it being ways of checking if someone has been changed already."

"It would be better if we could somehow stop it from happening again. Any way to keep that 'already changed' status?" A-0 asked rubbing his chin with a clawed hand.

"Right now your best bet for getting back to normal at all is somehow getting Charlie 80 to fix you himself. He switched the mind controlling each of your bodies with another, a risky enough thing, while either copying or leaving behind enough of the knowledge on how to control the body to make it possible for you to function afterward," the medical Administrator shook her body again and opened a number of pink and white panes in mid air. "Given the information on how it was done in the first place I might be able to reverse the process, but those checks are already so heavily tied into it that I'd definitely remove them just by fixing you."

"How hard would it be to get that info?" Gazimon asked while Serperior and Shawn had a whispered conversation. "Can we trick him into giving it out or something?"

"The good news is that it is well practiced, I'm sure that he is doing this regularly," Delta 2 replied. "But given the circumstances I doubt we can just ask for the data. If you exit properly he might do as he has been and change you back." She moved over to one of the panes and tapped it. "From what Janice has told me of the overall situation the right minds are leaving with the right bodies when requested, it is just that the pokemon have been stuck in someone else's body during their time in the Box itself."

"If the corruption is checking for who is or isn't switched whenever someone is there then we can't afford to simply change ourselves back and hope he misses us," Serperior said leaning against the serpentine mass of Shawn.

"The thing is we really need the two of us back in the right shape. So can we just change that part?" the plant pokemon asked pointing between the two of them. "Make this body into the human body and that one into the Serperior body?"

The pink and white Porygon stared at the two for a moment in utter shock. "Change the human into a snake first," A-0 said sarcastically. "We can handle having two of those better than having none." The current digimon earned itself a glare from her while the two who had proposed the idea gave a slightly amused laugh.

"The obvious checkpoints are located at places where the mind would need to be switched rather than the body being changed," the Porygon began after taking a moment to collect herself. "Altering your bodies to match each others, um, to match what you usually are, would technically have you in the proper shape while still being switched." She took a deep breath and almost looked like she wanted to hit the two of them. "However, it is going to introduce errors in both of you that I might never be able to fix. You definitely should not be switched back when we're done, and I'll comment your code to that effect to hopefully stop anyone from trying." The Chansey shaped pokemon now did lightly slap them. "I will also be outright copying some of the things that were left behind so you both have all of them. If we use this as a plan you will be effectively spending the rest of your lives in what used to be the other's body."

The two spent a moment seriously considering those complications. "What about the two of us?" A-0 asked as they moved to the side of the room to discuss. "If I had my admin functions back I could likely begin a number of containment methods and extract at least some of the related data."

Gazimon looked nervously at the pokemon wearing his body. "I'm not that up for getting my body even more messed up. It's been two days so far and I've already gotten sick of being rewritten," he commented spinning a bit as he tried to move his body along with his speech.

"I agree with him, we aren't even trying it with a Porygon," Delta 2 replied flashing her panes to display different information. "Those two have their natural type energy to fall back on. From what I can tell being transferred scrambled it a bit, but we both know they are close enough for this plan to work." Four data blocks were highlighted on a pair of screens. "You two have different energies from each other. It has mostly worked out because your bodies have been swapped too, but trying their plan would definitely have more extreme effects on the two of you."

A-0 walked up to look at the data, flinching at what he saw of the trainer and starter. "Shawn's is actually still his own from what I see here, just with a bit more Grass type added. Serperior as well, with a bit suppressed." He tapped the other thin display lightly. "This body on the other hand still has the Dark type energy configuration I gave it, while that other one is still what I keep my own type set as."

"Wait, what do you mean 'keep it set as'?" Gazimon asked moving closer to read the now pointed out data.

"Porygon are very simple pokemon, and also fairly simple digital life forms. One basic skill just about any Porygon can manage is to convert their type to match a target's, even out in the pokemon world where data manipulation is more difficult," A-0 answered. "Which I would think reduces the risk my sister is worried about?" it asked with a hint of concern.

"That body is more tied to the Dark type than any Porygon's form," she replied tapping its chest. "The absolute best I can do safely is copy some of the admin functionality so you can use it while in there, but Gazimon here would probably end up keeping it afterward." She turned to him with an apologetic look. "There honestly is still a chance that could happen anyway. Even if you aren't fully aware of it you are using some of those functions just by being in that body, so the reversal process might copy them into you when you get restored."

"In that case A-0 can teach Gazi about it while you are working on the two of us," Shawn said from across the room while draped across Serperior's shoulders. "We have an entire army of corruption to deal with that we know can control other pokemon. Even if it has been stable so far we need to take care of this issue, and getting Serperior in the proper body is a priority." He smiled showing sharp teeth. "Even if we do tend to say it as a joke I'm still alright with getting stuck with some side effects if it saves pokemon."

"That goes for me too," Serperior said looking seriously at Delta 2. "We're ready for whatever happens."

Delta 2 sighed heavily. "Get him started on panes," she said to her sibling. "I'll take care of this mess you found."


	7. 1-05 Oceanic Assault

\--- Oceanic Assault ---

"I take it from your eyes that we didn't have any luck fixing things?" Janice asked as they returned from the medical Box in a tight group.

"Huh?" a once more human Shawn asked blinking red slit eyes. He looked over to Serperior and frowned at how the snake pokemon's eyes were still blue and round. "I guess she didn't bother reshuffling our eyes?"

"Given how hissed off she was with doing it at all I can see her skipping it," Serperior said earning an annoyed look from the Troubleshooter Lead.

"Great, now we have them in stereo. Is his new speaking ability going to be a long term change?" she asked the floating Porygon causing the Grass type's eyes to widen.

"I'm still over here," the rabbit like digimon said in the voice of A-0, "and we've always had it in stereo, you just couldn't hear the worse half of it." It walked over to the console by the transmission pad and began configuring it. "They decided to go through with something stupidly risky to give us back our heavy hitter."

"Meanwhile I got a crash course in how to let someone breathe water temporarily. Apparently that is risky to still have going when you leave a digital world?" Gazimon asked from the polygonal pokemon.

"It causes complications that take days to fix. I'm guessing this eye thing isn't going to be even a multiple week fix?" she replied turning back to her console.

The shocked snake pokemon was still staring at the Lead. "I'm talking? Like, as a human talking?" he asked with worry sliding forward towards the other console.

"Focus Serp, we can deal with the fallout after the fact. Is there any way to track Charlie 80 better? An island closer to his position would either be a better place to land or a rather rough fight," Shawn said moving aside obviously to give a spot for his starter to thread back onto the pad.

"That should be simple enough if we take down enough of the little guys." A-0 stretched out his current body, looking over his claws. "How good is that kickboxing of yours, Shawn?"

"Well my lessons were mostly a giant bird getting to laugh at me while I fell down mimicking him," the trainer replied giving a brief but strong kick outwards that was wrapped in a hint of tan glow. "Okay, I'm fairly sure I just figured out what Gazi meant with energy being easier to use. I think I was able to put some into that," he said as he stumbled a bit at the result.

"Okay, now I'm a bit worried. Stand back a bit," Serperior said eying his short leafy arms. After they cleared a good area away from any equipment the snake pokemon he sent a blast of leaves around himself. "Looks like you got a good chunk of my levels along with my old body. Do we have a plan B for when they show up with an army of pokemon we can't just smash recklessly."

"Plan B is already underway. I have contacted the trainers who have been using the Box and started having them recover as many pokemon as they can. Two are not in a good situation to do so, one is even in the middle of the desert right now," Janice said looking annoyed at the few leaves that had not broken down at the end of the move. "But we've got permission to assist those and will likely be doing a full health check after this is done." She looked over at A-0 and Gazimon. "So far six pokemon have not been able to be recovered, with an error message that implies some sort of delay. They all have been safely returned previously at some point since the issue started, but they are six of the more powerful pokemon that weren't in the initial part of the recovery effort. Whatever took over Charlie 80 is smart enough to figure out I was getting rid of its fighting power for when you got back."

"Shit," A-0 said shaking its head. "Shawn, you're either figuring out how to fight or staying behind. Gazimon, this is probably a pokemon level fighter here. Keep mobile and try and stay away from any captured pokemon." It sighed at the slightly upset look on the current Porygon's face. "We can try and capture it if possible, but this is one of the worst I've ever seen. That it is smart enough to not cause problems despite taking over the Box and is reacting to us attempting to cut off its threat indicates it could easily cause large amounts of problems for us when trying to take it down."

"I'm a little less sympathetic to a digimon that controls minds like that. I'm more worried about what exactly I'm going to be hiding from other than little dome things," Gazimon replied looking over at the Troubleshooter Lead. "The shelled thing seemed dangerous enough."

"The remaining pokemon are the Cloyster you met before, a Vaporeon, a Corsola, something called a Tirtoga, a Ka-bu-tops, and the fossil pokemon Omanyte," she listed off bringing up pictures of each. Other than the clam from before there was a blue four legged almost canine creature covered in fins, a pink thing looking like a rock with spiky growths, a dark blue turtle with a thick rock shell, a spiky brown pokemon that looked sort of like a bug, and a white spiral shell with a number of blue tentacles extending a short ways out its opening.

"Let me guess, a fossil hunter has half a Water type team missing?" Serperior asked pointing at the last three.

"The trainer currently in the desert, yes," she responded looking over the three. "So they are all fossil pokemon. Will that be a problem?"

"Only two of the six aren't extremely vulnerable to me, which means either it guessed right about me needing to go extra easy to keep them safe or it picked the absolute worst options depending on how you look at it." The snake pokemon now looked a lot more worried about plan B. "Do we have any level information on them?"

"I have what the trainers thought they were, and our own entry and exit scans to compare to that. The latter will have the issue that fossil pokemon are rare, so we are giving a rough guide there," she replied pulling up another data sheet. "Cloyster and Vaporeon are both in the 50s judging from their status and last known attacks. Corsola and Ka-bu-tops are in their 40s, with the latter noted as having evolved immediately prior to going into the Box. Finally the last two are in the 30s, with notes from their trainer that the 35 to 45 range is the expected evolution conditioning."

"There is some risk that the high level minds are in the lower level bodies," Shawn noted. "We can't be sure that is the way the corruption decided to split them."

"No, conditioning of the body is the most critical aspect for us right now," Serperior disagreed. "I can still take any of them easily, especially with the type disadvantage. The mind control is going to take a lot of their thoughts out of the equation, and if it is relying on the mind present then the same lack of familiarity Gazimon is currently dealing with should even things out." He looked over the data. "I'd treat them all in the 30s until proven otherwise."

"Are we sure they got switched back correctly?" Janice asked dryly. "Because it really is sounding like two Shawns here."

"They've both been like that as long as I've known them," A-0 said shaking its head. "I can't really imagine what it is like not knowing that the snake is just as wordy as his human."

"Is this level something you can compare with? Because a day ago you told me I was only around 10 and I'm hearing much bigger numbers here," Gazimon asked nervously watching the discussion his worried question had started.

"Level is technically the percentage measure of how close a pokemon is to their peak power. This is determined based on measurements of the pokemon in question, and data on the species overall. Generally a pokemon of a given level will be able to face an foe of around the same level on fairly equal ground, but that is more because the majority of pokemon are around the same general strength overall. Legendary pokemon are the notable exception as even the most basic of them tend to be stronger than an equivalent pokemon," Janice explained bringing up another document. After looking it over for a moment she stopped scrolling and frowned. "'Researchers deploy new cataloging software intended to collect and analyze information gained on rare and Legendary pokemon,'" she quoted turning to look at A-0 again. "It was looking for Legends and generally a collector?" The rabbit monster nodded with a touch of anger. "I'll see if I can find the code for it, maybe get you a plan C."

"Back to Gazi's question," Serperior said earning a sigh from the digital creature in question. "Most pokemon in the wild will vary in level based on their location, with lower level typically meaning younger. The outliers of a fairly young pokemon that has a high level are mainly found with trainers. For example in the rare locations where my species lives in the wild you could find individuals of our first form, Snivy, that are much older than I am." He motioned to Janice who after a moment brought up an image of a green reptile with thin arms and legs that resembled Serperior. "Snivy tend to be below level 20, as around that level we can evolve into Servine." Another image, this one having a longer body, more leaves, and far shorter proportioned arms. "At around level 40, the condition that our potential enemies are at, we finally can become Serperior serpents such as myself." He curled around on himself into a regal pose, that was marred slightly by the not quite fitting round blue eyes he now possessed. "I was in the 60 to 70 range, but I'd say offhand that I lost at least 10 levels from this whole mess."

"And how much stronger is 60 than 10?" Gazimon asked floating around the Grass type while looking over at the pictures of his prior forms.

"Below Level 10 can fight some, but generally should be kept out of any serious battle. Between levels 10 and 50 is fairly average for wild pokemon, and vary from destroying boulders to small hills. Past there you get the really strong pokemon that are able to reshape the land around them. At level 100 even a fairly common pokemon could possibly destroy a small mountain in a fairly short time frame. A strong Legendary can destroy an entire region at their peak power," Shawn noted with a somewhat joking smile that was made rather sinister by his slit red eyes.

"Ah, that doesn't sound too far from the difference between an In Training, a Rookie, and a Champion," Gazimon replied with the polygons of the body he was in changed to pale versions of their normal color. "I think that last one even sounds kinda like an Ultimate digimon."

"Right, does that help then? I want to get my brother safe and my body back some time today," A-0 said testily. "We know the threats, we fixed the firepower, and we even have an idea what we are after."

Gazimon froze in place for a moment, then bobbed in an approximation of a nod. Serperior grinned while moving onto the transport pad. Finally Shawn tapped the floor while still smiling before joining his starter. "Alright, I'll be ready if you need help again, and working on possible ways of assisting from outside the Box. Stay safe, and kick its ass," Janice said seriously before they once again transported into Box 180.

\---

Serperior was attacking the small domes as soon as they landed, before their eyes even cleared. "Unidentified creature has reentered the local region. All entities are currently Swapped. Deploying improved containment units," the dull voice of the Administrator said from nowhere. The four of them quickly moved to deal with the already present mass of creatures that covered the island they arrived on. The small domes extended all the way to the shore of the small island.

"Gazimon, as soon as we get some space get the four of us water breathing," A-0 ordered rapidly slashing through the many digital life forms surrounding them. It focused more on clearing a spot than destroying as many as it could, pushing aside foes to create pileups of twitching polygons. Serperior was doing this more efficiently by sending spirals of leaves around the group over areas that the rabbit monster was not covering.

"I hear you, I hear you." The hopefully temporary Porygon had opened a single black colored pane that was scrolling through options using a simple command prompt. "I'm just worried that the whole week before I ended up here had a lot of me working on this sort of thing without a clue," he mumbled just barely audible over the combat. Commands slowly processed on the screen while Shawn split his attention between trying to assist Gazimon and keeping any enemies that got past the others away. The small domes sometimes shattering with his kicks.

"Vaporeon inbound," Serperior said looking at an unusually mobile segment of the water that as it approached was more clearly shown to be physical rather than digital like the rest of the ocean. It surged onto the beach, revealing a lighter portion of the puddle that was instead made of data. "And it somehow had the controller melt with it," the snake pokemon continued looking at the liquid dubiously. "A-0, can you hit just the digi part?"

The furry combatant looked over annoyed. "I thought that was why you and your partner got even more mixed up. No, I'm not going to be able to splash a puddle better than you," the currently Dark type replied before breathing out a wide cone of paralyzing gas to slow the approach of a smaller group that had spread out so it would take longer to hit them individually.

"Alright, hopefully this is a tough guy." The serpent started off with a few glowing leaves in an attempt to target the liquefied corruption more than the controlled pokemon. The watery body of the target sloshed aside and formed blue scaled paws to grip the digital sand better as it dodged. The opposing pokemon partially reformed showing clearly that it was a Vaporeon while keeping the digital life form as hard to hit liquid halfway down its back. "I'm going to need a bit of focus here, so do your best without me," Serperior said darting forward to close the distance in order to increase his accuracy.

Gazimon's pane was almost immediately broken by an attacking foe taking advantage of the new hole in their formation. The current Porygon barely managed a weak Signal Beam to take out the enemy that interrupted him. "Was this just a part of the plan I wasn't told?" he asked floating between the remaining two. Rather than restart his work he produced more of the energy attacks, slowly growing more proficient in using them.

"The plan assumed that we'd have a little time to clear a spot." Shawn was now moving much more to push or kick the many small domes away from the remaining trio. "I'm glad these ones don't seem to have an attack."

"Now I'm thinking I should have taught you how to make a dome shield too," A-0 shouted while making a long running slash through a great many of the smaller foes, the sight of which briefly distracted the other digital member of their group.

Serperior approached his foe with caution, more for the safety of his target than his own. The small domes were easily shoved or shattered, and they seemed to know it as they remained well out of his path in their single minded pursuit of his team. The Vaporeon's dull blue eyes seemed similarly focused, but with just enough awareness to know he would not allow it to pass as easily. Two more small groupings of spinning leaves made sure it stayed where it was as the serpent slid quickly towards the Water type.

The aqueous pokemon splattered downward instead of trying to move to the side, then fired a rainbow colored beam attack along the ground towards the plant pokemon. This produced a frozen trail that the Grass type easily slid past as the poorly aimed attack went wide. The use of the disadvantageously typed attack made the snake suspect that the corrupt research program wanted them captured rather than injured, as the trail of frozen land revealed that the icy results of the move were being increased, likely at a beneficial cost of damage.

Serperior would have liked a similar option himself to capture his target with minimal harm. Coiling physically around a puddle of water was a poor idea in general, and the other option of growing a multitude of small plants to tie up an overly mobile target was unlikely to work well on something they could try to drink instead. So instead he would simply have to remove the controlling creature while doing as little damage to his opponent as he could manage.

Seeing that its enemy was both able to avoid its ranged attack and closing fast the Vaporeon instead attempted to slam into Serperior, the movement quite off as if it expected to be considerably larger and likely armored. The snake pokemon took this movement to slash out with a sharp leaf along the liquefied part of the aquatic pokemon's body, slicing through the lighter colored area entirely. The digital portion of the liquefied target fragmented away quickly as the pokemon fell to the side panting and solidifying more as it tried to regain control of its current body.

The many domes surrounding the two pokemon shifted slowly in their movement to try and recapture the panting Water type. Serperior quickly wrapped around the now much more solid pokemon and sent a wave of leaves around them to clear a way back to the rest of the group. "Ugh, am I still in the fish?" the Vaporeon asked wearily.

"Can deal with that later, when out of this mess," the serpent replied quickly as he continued to move back to where the others were struggling with the shear number of enemies and set down the recovered pokemon. "One down, five to go!" he called out to them while sending out another blast of cutting leaves.

"Too bad it turns out we actually needed you handling the massive army trying to stop us," A-0 yelled back while rushing between the various piled up domes around the trio. Shawn was very busy keeping them off himself as well and Gazimon was doing slightly worse with his own attempts to keep the swarm away. Serperior quickly returned to dealing with a large arc around the group with another wave of glowing leaves while the Vaporeon managed to get back on their feet.

"They haven't been stopping for a while now," the Vaporeon said tiredly. "There were a bunch of Rock types the thing decided it liked and we couldn't do anything when they swarmed to get them." The fish like pokemon shook itself, small splatters of its body flying a short distance before moving back to it again. "It's been keeping them close to Manaphy while looking them over. They are the only ones of us that didn't end up switched."

"I take it you're actually Cloyster then? Any idea where your body ended up?" Shawn asked while moving over to check the pokemon. He quickly retrieved a few medical items from his bag and began working to restore the pokemon while the others reestablished their defenses.

"Yes I am, but I don't know where- Your eyes are red," the pokemon cut itself off. "Oh please tell me I didn't just get beaten by a human stuck in a snake."

"Don't worry about that, we've managed to mostly fix ourselves," the blue eyed snake said slashing with his entire body to clear a large pile of foes that had built up during his rush to take out the Vaporeon. "We've just got switched eyes right now."

"That one is his body right?" Gazimon asked pointing his body towards a shape rising out of the water. The mentioned Water/Ice pokemon then emerged from the water at the site he indicated.

Serperior gave a huff and started to move towards the new foe. "No! We need you here dealing with the army," A-0 shouted at him while leaping over a group in the direction of the clam. "I've got these things, I should be able to manage something," it continued holding out its claws.

As the snake pokemon continued to remake their defense along with Gazimon the latter's body quickly moved through the group of domes between them and Cloyster under A-0's control. Claws slashed at some of the enemies as it passed, but most were ignored in favor of the approaching pokemon. The Cloyster, presumably controlled by the corruption and inhabited by the Vaporeon, responded by sending another freezing beam towards the purplish digital monster. A-0 quickly rolled to the side, then dug under the ground to avoid further attacks on his approach.

Unlike with the fight against Vaporeon the dome creatures were still remaining around the pokemon as it was attacked. As a result A-0's burst from the ground close to its target hit a good number of them, with others flowing forward to attempt to capture him themselves. This distracted the clam pokemon long enough for the current digimon to get a quick slash close to the controlling dome, although the Water type was able to close its inner shell fast enough to block the attack.

The rabbit monster quickly jumped to the side, stomping another pair of the smaller foes, to avoid a surge of water that accompanied the grey shell opening again. The massive spike just above the dual type's head then swung towards A-0, easily dodged by the digital monster ducking low while it tried to hit the dome creature again. This time the digimon was able to graze the edge of the attacking pokemon, but the damage was minimal and it needed to retreat for a moment to fully avoid its opponent's strike.

It quickly sliced through the domes where it landed, with the creatures now moving away from the two combatants so that Cloyster could more easily attack. The pokemon slid on the sand in a quick twist to face A-0 again, this time firing the spike from above its head. Another spike took its place and quickly fired after it, and then a third in a brief but strong ranged attack. A-0 moved forward again threading between the first and second spike while letting the third graze along its arm as it brought the claws on the limb into contact with the small dome controlling the pokemon. The digital life form shattered, and the pokemon immediately spun around sending out another icy beam in an arc around it to hit more of the mind controlling creatures.

"Thanks," the Cloyster said looking over at the group slowly moving the defensive line towards the two of them. "Although you are the reason one of them latched on me to start, so really you owed me that much." The Water/Ice type continued to send attacks into the still rather thick waves of foes.

"Gazimon, how is that water breathing coming?" A-0 called over as the two sets of battles thinned the available targets from between the two groups enough to speed up their movements towards each other. This was helped by Vaporeon recovering enough to join in the assault on the side of the Troubleshooters.

"If you can spare some time from somehow using my body to fight I'd love to have some help!" the current Porygon replied with sarcastic anger. "I can see all the stuff you showed me over in Delta 2's place, but the snakes are still a mess I don't really want to work with. Not to mention knowing about this stuff is only making me more worried about what you've done to my body already."

"I think dealing with that can wait for you to be back inside your own body," Shawn said sitting down as Cloyster joined the defensive ring around the group. "Let me see what you've got there."

"No," A-0 said sliding in between the two of them. "The guy who has someone else's eyes does not get to mess with the rest of us, and yes that applies to you too Serperior."

"Sill busy fighting, but grateful for the help," the Grass type said briefly pointing to the two Water types that had moved to surround the rest of them.

"Right, first bring up a pane and we'll start with yourself," A-0 began to work Gazimon through the process. The single black pane reappeared, then after the short refresher on the process it flashed along with the Porygon's body. They repeated this for both Shawn and A-0 without any issue. "Why were you even worried?" the latter asked annoyed by how easily the process went. "Serperior, are you ready for this?"

"We can handle the Analyzers while you do whatever you need to do," the Vaporeon noted, getting a bob of agreement from Cloyster. "The big one is already slowing down how fast they are coming at us, and this is already a lot more of them than I expected us to be able to take down." Its words were confirmed by the more widely spaced waves of the small domes of corruption.

"Is everyone up for the next part, or do we extract now and come back after a rest?" Shawn asked the group as Gazimon worked on letting the Grass type breathe under the water.

"A short break to rest would be nice, but I don't want to try and go out again," Serperior replied. "Can you help Gazi make a shield to keep them out for a bit, A-0?"

"Yeah, I think I can. He honestly needs the experience more than you two do," the rabbit monster replied. "So you're off the hook for now."


	8. 1-06 Oceanic Resolution

\--- Oceanic Resolution ---

The larger black dome was working quite well at keeping the dome shaped digital life forms, apparently named Analyzers if the two Water types were to be believed, at bay. Their total lack of offensive capabilities was now noticeable as the mind controlling creatures simply could not do anything to it.

"Why wasn't this plan A?" Gazimon asked still a bit amazed that he had made the thing. "Seems like it works alright."

"Because I can break this by leaning on it too hard," the Cloyster replied tapping lightly on the dome with one of the spikes on its outer shell. "I've seen Porygon made screens before, and they can't actually handle any serious pokemon attacks without active power behind them. You'd tire yourself out more trying to stop one or both of us from breaking it than you did just fighting them."

"It's why I didn't teach you how while we were in Box 201. I didn't know if these things could manage it themselves, and if they could it would have been a waste of energy. Now at worst it will give us a direction where the next pokemon is attacking," A-0 told the temporary Porygon. "Are you two sure it won't send any of the fossils?" it asked the Water types while scratching the back of its head with a frown. "Any one of them could take it down even from the water."

"It wants to learn more than anything else. Actually it really doesn't like anyone getting hurt," the Vaporeon noted. "Those ones are here more because it wants to see what they can do than to help fight."

"That is unusual. We will have to see what happens as we approach it," A-0 replied. "Any ideas on where it is, or are we fighting while searching the entire virtual ocean here?"

The two Water types looked at each other nervously. "It knows how to alter the layout a bit. It can make this place into a maze, maybe even change things enough to stop us from reaching it," the eeveelution said looking out towards the closest shore.

"We can stabilize the land around us using some programs," Shawn replied. "I can manage it to some extent using the Pokedex, but it would be best if we also had Gazi helping."

"Scenting it out would still be a big search. It can't have that many more of these Analyzer things, so we should see the fighting slide down until it decides what to do with the fossils," Serperior added looking over the small piles of domed creatures that had managed to build up around their shield. Their small piles were barely maintaining two creatures tall before collapsing, although they had built up over a large area over the time the group had been resting.

"It can make them rather quickly, but I think that is mostly because it is using Manaphy to help it," Cloyster said moving forward and attempting to draw in the digital sand. The surface did not cleanly take the shapes he was making, but after a short time he had a rough map with the islands and what underwater features there were mapped out. "He usually remains in the temple thing here." The clam pokemon tapped on a roughly made column shape. "We're somewhere around here." This time it scratched an 'X' into one of the islands some distance away.

"What's stopping it from just making it impossible to find this place?" Gazimon asked tapping the column with one of his blocky pylons. "Ya know, change the land so it is in a cave, or not connected at all?"

"First they can't completely disconnect the rest of the Box from one part entirely, and secondly the energy and time needed to even isolate it from this method of stabilizing the terrain is rather extreme," A-0 answered. "We would be able to reach them before it could be done to any real extent."

"Is that a 'let's get moving'?" Shawn asked tapping the Pokedex to setup the stabilization process. "We do know where we're going and what we're after, so all that's left is fixing this whole mess."

"At least shedding the main problems, I think the two of us aren't going back," his starter replied with a joking smile. "We can work him through setting it up while you three get ready for striking our foes. It is rather serpentfying to see you actually participating in battle, A-0. You should join in more often."

A-0 gave a half hearted swipe at the massive plant reptile. "When I have my admin capabilities I mostly don't need to fight. Unless the two of you are volunteering to take over that part?" it asked sarcastically, getting a laughing shake of the head from the two Troubleshooters.

Reluctantly Gazimon was instructed in the process of holding the space around his current Porygon body stable with regards to its layout. Only after he got his own version setup and held together in a small pane of his now typical black color did Shawn finish turning on the same process for the Pokedex. "So, just to be clear here, one hit to this thing and I need to start it again, right?" Gazimon asked shaking the pane as they prepared to break their own protective dome and make their way to the water. "How does something that can't fall feel so heavy?" he mumbled as he got an amused nod from the snake pokemon as a reply.

Serperior then sent out a massive ring of glowing leaves to shatter the black protective dome and clear out the piles of smaller corruption domes at the same time. Immediately afterward Cloyster and Vaporeon led the charge towards the shore, sending out powerful blasts of water to take out any targets hit directly while also having the resulting splash push others aside to clear the way. A-0 followed after keeping an eye on any targets the two Water types missed. Shawn and Gazimon were next keeping the program running, and Serperior remained at the rear of the group to guard for any that approached them after they passed by.

The two lead pokemon easily moved into the water, with the temporary digimon following after a brief pause where it looked with annoyance at the fur coating its current body. Shawn easily jumped into the waves without any pause, slightly closing with A-0 as a result. Gazimon hung back for a long enough moment for Serperior to grab his floating form and pull him into the water while keeping the pane from being disrupted by the distracting action.

The underwater portion of the shore extended shallowly for a short distance before dropping down sharply to a deeper area that made up the majority of the Box. The water was unusually bright, seemingly lit uniformly regardless of depth. There were a few darker areas visible in the distance, mostly near harsher drops at the edges of other islands. The group descended down the edge quickly, with the dome creatures failing to keep up. The number of foes declined as they went deeper, with it quite apparent that the analyzers had gathered near the surface of the water where they could more quickly reach the shore.

"A, why does a thing made of solid blocks without any holes need to breathe?" Gazimon asked barely managing to float down at the pace of the others without losing his pane.

"Well Gazi," A-0 began glaring at the Porygon and emphasizing the shortened version of the name. "Technically right now you are quite hollow. As for breathing, it is just something I need to do normally."

"If we're complaining about other people's bodies I'd much prefer being solid while in the water again," the current inhabitant of Vaporeon noted with parts of their body being effectively invisible due to merging with the water around them.

"I'm not a big fan of this whole swimming while solid thing myself," the Cloyster's operator said giving a dark look to his normal body.

"Being a human wasn't the greatest. Actually, am I technically still a human?" Serperior asked with a humorous tone as he threaded his way through the water while remaining at the rear of the group.

"If so I'm still technically a Serperior serpent myself," Shawn replied with a laugh as he got ready to land on the approaching ocean floor, and checked the Pokedex's own stabilization program.

A-0 let out a groan of despair as it touched down on the muddy brown polygons that made up the terrain at the base of the drop. "Please tell me it isn't far from here," it said to the two Water types as they looked around the bottom. After a moment they both pointed towards the edge of the drop, indicating that they needed to go around the island a bit. "Let me guess, it looks different from under the water?" it asked getting embarrassed nods from both of them.

They started moving keeping an eye on the slowly approaching dome shaped analyzer life forms. After a moment there was a distortion at a good distance away that suddenly revealed a large area filled with the creatures. Serperior and the Water types quickly reacted with a number of attacks that removed the sudden threat in an instant. When the group continued forward it became clear that the change had occurred at the very edge of the area they were keeping stable as the altered topography reverted as they approached.

"This is just getting weirder," Gazimon noted, and was slightly surprised when the two local pokemon agreed with him.

\---

A-0 quickly sliced through yet another analyzer that managed to hide in the various pieces of terrain along the path before it could smash into Gazimon's pane. They were getting close now, and the improvement in tactics for their otherwise pathetic foes was proving impressive. The path was rather difficult to determine, as the area outside of their bubble of stable ground was shifted to a number of distant locations. With places that they weren't going to obscuring the actual terrain they were having to pick their way carefully through. The main threat was a mix of groups of analyzers appearing in a newly shifted area outside the bubble, and hidden ones in the actual terrain that they were covering.

"I'm getting rather antsy waiting for one of the other pokemon to finally show up," the temporary digimon said to the group looking at the fur of its arm floating in the water as they walked.

"We're almost there," the Vaporeon replied. "If it lets them fight it will do it then."

The edge of the stabilized area suddenly revealed a large stone temple structure that snapped into view suddenly as all of the distortion vanished in an instant. Numerous enemies lined the walls, and most quickly moved towards the group. While they were dealt with those closest to the visible entrance moved into it, attempting to block the path with their bodies. Direct conflict with these life forms had not provided any difficulty so far, and both of these were quickly eliminated by the three main attackers of the group.

The entryway led to a small chamber with a large door inside. "It was a bit of a puzzle," the Cloyster noted pointing their spike at a number of small indentations in a ring around the center of the door. "Put the right colored orbs in the right spots and Manaphy would know you were serious enough to interrupt him. Usually it is only closed like this when he was busy with something." The other Water type quickly located a small pile of the mentioned items that had been shoved roughly into a corner. "It was a reverse rainbow the last I knew, starting from the top with the purple one and going clockwise."

The clam pokemon then helped the others sort the orbs while complaining somewhat about not having its paws. The puzzle did not take long to complete in the previously known sequence, and the small number of new foes that arrived from outside were barely worth noting. The door then rather slowly slid inwards to allow them to continue. There was a small number of additional analyzers immediately beyond the door, and as they continued more arrived from various side rooms that extended off the main hall. At the end was a second door, but the group of analyzers that burst out at their approach revealed it to be unlocked. Following close behind was Corsola, the pink and white Water/Rock type pokemon practically coated by the dome shape creature controlling it and charging a light blue beam attack.

A-0 was the first to notice the pokemon among their latest enemies, and moved around the Ice Beam to give its own slash to shatter the dome controlling. "It couldn't make itself any smaller?" it asked the coral pokemon with a sigh of disappointment while its companions quickly finished off the others.

"What? No, and I've had six of the things on me because of it," the rocky creature said before turning to glare into the room beyond. "Why that thing sent me out here I don't even, ugh."

The room itself was a large open area with pillars providing some cover. Towards the middle of the room was a number of rocky formations that seemed to be seating of some kind, where the last three pokemon with analyzers attached to them sat. The large brown form with massive scythe hands was in the middle of the group having the dome shaped digital life form attached to its back, with the rocky turtle and spiral shelled pokemon at either side of it both mostly enveloped by their controllers like Corsola had been. The three of them turned at the arrival of the group and made ready to fight.

Before they could, however, a larger shape surged from the back of the room to occupy the space between the two groups. It was a much more massive jellyfish like creature, easily over a meter across and possibly approaching two. Along the front of the creature there were four tendrils connecting to its dome spaced across the edge of the hemisphere. In the center of its rear half was a tail made of chains of dull grey colored analyzers, it was three of the smaller creatures wide with the central chain of domes four long and the two outer ones only three creatures in length. The main dome itself was made entirely of various shaped data panes that currently displayed the words 'NO', 'Stop', and the phrase "Don't Fight".

The two central tendrils were holding a Porygon with a bloby yet blocky blue body, the Administrator asleep or unconscious in its grip. His head was a slight teardrop shape with two sets of three yellow colored rounded polygons connected by exaggerated black lines situated presumably as eyes that were currently closed. The body was much smaller with a large red almost oval shaped polygon in its center just above a small yellow spot. Two flat arms or fins most of the size of the body connected just below where the head sat. On top of the head was a pair of rounded tubes, with orb like structures at their ends.

The three fossil pokemon actually seemed to move to aid the creature, only for their bodies to begin moving more unsteadily as they retreated to the back of the room. The 'Don't Fight' message took over more of the rear panes as they did so, while a number of the front ones changed to read "Protect Fossil Pokemon". "Legendary Analysis System initiating basic combat protocols," it said with a mechanical voice while moving the Porygon as far back as its limbs would allow. The last four domes of its tail flashed and new analyzers formed beneath them seemingly pealing away from the grey domed appendage.

"Okay, bad news is that I can't check how Charlie 80 is doing, so we have to be extra careful here," A-0 told the others as the new foes moved forward to attempt to control them.

"I'll see what I can find out," Shawn replied bringing up the Pokedex. In response the massive jellyfish life form pulled the captured Porygon under its dome like body. "Or maybe not."

Vaporeon and A-0 slashed at one pair of the smaller domes, while Cloyster hit the other two with fired spines. One of these projectiles continued past after destroying its target and hit near the Omanyte, causing the main foe to flash 'NO' across its body for a moment. Sparks danced down the two outer tendrils as it slashed them forward in an attempt to hit the fighters of the group.

A-0 and Serperior simply moved to avoid the strike, but the two Water types instead retreated backwards rapidly in the face of the electricity based attack. They immediately sent icy beams through the water towards the target as soon as they were clear, with one hitting the upper portion of the creature with some effect, but the second went low and nearly clipped the Manaphy shaped Porygon.

"Stop!" the corruption cried out at the same time as A-0 yelled out "Hey!", both looking over at the Vaporeon. "No! Do not hurt Legendary!" the creature continued, now moving with obvious agitation as 'Bad Pokemon' and 'Protect' flashed on its panes. After a moment it moved backward and carefully set the Administrator behind the small formations in the center of the room.

The three longest time members of the Troubleshooter team paused at this reaction, Serperior in particular stopping to glance at Gazimon. The angered digital creature began slashing its arms at the two Water types in earnest, forcing them to focus entirely on dodging, while it began to more rapidly produce the Analyzers. The snake pokemon joined in the fight with a pair of glowing leaves that were fired carefully to judge how they performed under the water. The projectiles moved much slower than above the water, and the creature attempted to slap them away with its tendrils only to flinch from their impact while flashing 'High Danger'.

"Hey," a tired voice said from the rear of the room. "Hey, wait. Everybody stop." Charlie 80 slowly floated back out into the main area as the various combatants slowed in response to his request.

"Legendary, hide! Danger here!" the creature said to the pokemon, attempting to float between him and the others with its panes still alternating between 'Danger', 'Bad Pokemon', and 'Protect'.

"Brother, what exactly is happening here?" A-0 asked with confused annoyance.

The Porygon grumbled a moment as he forced himself towards his sibling. "This guy has been using me as a toy," he started, but seemed to reconsider immediately. "He's not been hurting anything though, and has at least been putting everyone back and letting them go."

"Also Legendary?" the creature asked turning to look at A-0 with its panes rapidly displaying flowing text. "Negative, creature is currently under effect of Heart Swap. Explain?"

"That is not normal," Shawn whispered to Gazimon who was watching the events with some confusion. "We have a Box full of corruption here, Charlie 80. What are you planning on doing with that?" he asked the Administrator loudly while pointing at the massive dome.

The Water Legend shaped pokemon flinched at the response. "Well, there has to be something you can do other than destroy it right?" it asked timidly.

"Can others explain?" the Legendary Analysis System asked again, now turning between all of those present with simple question marks on its surfaces.

"That guy is a digital pokemon, like this body I'm stuck in," Gazimon answered the creature. "That's your fault by the way," he continued with obvious anger. "These are both somehow the same thing, just shaped differently."

"But the Legendary possesses the capacity to perform Heart Swap?" it asked, still apparently confused and displaying a graphic of Manaphy switching a Vaporeon and a Cloyster.

The questioning was interrupted by a beep from the Pokedex, followed by Janice's voice, the sound slightly distorted by the water. "Guys, I'm seeing a big dip in the power use for the Box. Normally I'd be congratulating you on doing a good job of fixing things but we have a complication."

"I think we actually have several at this point, Janice," Serperior replied while Shawn fiddled with the device. "What's got you rattled?"

"I've managed to get into contact with the group that made the 'Legendary Analysis System' program, and unfortunately they are asking us to not destroy it," she replied with exasperation. "Apparently they had a plan of turning it into a Porygon while they were developing the thing and when I explained the situation they decided they wanted to try and recover any data they could." There was the sound of typing from the small speaker. "So they are hoping we could capture it and send it out to see if we get a stable Porygon to send them. How likely is that?"

"Porygon is digital Legendary?" the creature asked attempting to float closer to the group. Behind it the group could see the fossil pokemon swimming out of the dissolving remains of the analyzers, the smaller creatures apparently disintegrating now that they were cut off from whatever was maintaining them.

"Technically they are not. Who am I speaking with?" Janice asked with a wary tone.

"Legendary Analysis System Dome-12, original assignment fossil pokemon cataloging," it replied. "Porygon has demonstrated capabilities typically restricted to Legendary pokemon. Explain?"

The Team Lead let out a groan. "A-0, can you get that out of the Box?" she asked obviously not liking the prospect.

A-0 looked between the Pokedex, its body currently inhabited by Gazimon, the Analysis System, and finally its brother. "If Charlie 80 can put me back in my body I might be able to do something a bit better. From working with Gazimon I think I have a way to safely transport digital life forms out of a digital world without making them into Porygon as a side effect. So maybe we can give them the monitor jellyfish directly," it said smiling darkly at the Administrator.

"Ah, yes. Just give me a moment," the Porygon replied nervously opening a number of blue panes. "I'll just- What happened here?" he asked terrified while looking at Shawn and Serperior.

"We needed a way to not get switched when we came back in," the trainer said easily while slowly blinking his red slit eyes.

"Just get me my admin functions back, the rest of your pokemon can wait and those two already know they're stuck," A-0 grumbled rubbing its arms.

The Administrator looked between Gazimon and his sibling and then nodded focusing on one of his panes. The Analysis System started to float back over, only to stop at a growl from A-0. After a few moments the pane disappeared in a blue flash that also encompassed the two switched Troubleshooters. Gazimon's body once more opened red eyes, and the digimon quickly began to check himself over now that he was back in his proper form. A-0's Porygon form similarly had his eyes restored, and the digital pokemon made a number of annoyed buzzing sounds as it seemed to shake itself out.

"Right, Janice you still there?" it asked turning to look over the corruption while opening a pair of its own panes. "More importantly where am I sending this thing?"

"Their team has somebody coming to our facility to pick it up if you can manage to get it out. What does it look like?" she replied as another blue flash reverted Vaporeon and Cloyster to their own bodies.

"Sending you a picture now. You might want to be a bit careful, he seems curious," Shawn said tapping a button on the Pokedex. There was a moment of silence afterward while she presumably looked at the photo.

"Okay, I guess I'm ready for you to send that thing over to me A-0," Janice said with a sigh.

A-0 bobbed his body and opened a third pane while turning to the Legendary Analysis System. "Right, not used to this outcome. Are you ready to return to your creators?" it asked the creature.

"Data turn in? Acceptable!" the creature cheered happily. "Standard transmission and recording device has not been functioning properly," it said pointing towards the brown colored fossil pokemon, specifically a small box tied around its neck that was also being displayed on its panes.

"Janice, would the fossil pokemon trainer happen to work with the group you contacted?" Serperior asked eyeing the now nervous Water/Rock typed pokemon.

"He's a member of their team actually. What is the System talking about?" she asked with restrained anger.

"Some sort of tracking device on one of his pokemon. I'm guessing it is how this whole mess started," Shawn said with a touch of annoyance himself.

"Is there a problem?" the digital life form asked confused.

"Not at the moment," A-0 said moving closer to the creature. "Please hold still and get ready. This should get you out without any long term issues."

"Which makes you lucky," Gazimon mumbled while still checking his body from time to time.

"Confirmed, ready for activity," the creature said apparently not hearing the complaint. After a moment the area around it began to glow and then with a bright flash the creature vanished from the Box. "Warning, visual systems overloaded," its voice said over the Pokedex. "Stay clear while reboot occurs."

"Well, it's polite enough for a robot jellyfish. Metang, can you give me a basic scan now that it's out here?" Janice asked her pokemon.

"Creature is an unknown digital entity, registering as Water/Electric type. Structure and format differs from Porygon significantly, and has several major differences that make it unclear if it is a pokemon," the Steel/Psychic dully replied.

"Right, hopefully figuring that out isn't our problem. A-0, finish fixing anything critical in Box 180 and get your team ready to come home. I'll be working on getting a place for our guest to stay until his creators can make it here," she said before an audible beep signified the connection cutting off.

The Porygon sighed at the sound. "Brother, I'm hoping we can just remove the makeshift water breath modification and go home. Are there any other complications that are immediately in need of correction?" At the sight of the blue digital pokemon turning towards the human and serpent A-0 continued. "Other than the mess with those two?"

"Nothing immediate. I'm not actually sure how extreme the side effects are in general, as some of the documents I have read implied that some did occur when a real Manaphy used this," Charlie 80 said with considerable embarrassment. "I had just figured out how to do it when this mess started, um. Oh, wow it's been longer than I thought." The Porygon then looked over the remaining inhabitants of his box. "Okay, I'm going to need to apologize to Delta 2."

"If it makes you feel any better, me and Serp are probably going to be at the top of her list of complaints for months now," Shawn said shrugging while managing to lean on Serperior despite being underwater. Their mismatched eyes clearly visible.

"I'm going to need to find something really good to make this up to her," the Administrator continued not at all comforted by the sight of the worst of the effects. "You all should be good to leave. I'll make a fast path to the shore for you."

\---

The team returned to a massive jellyfish monster being given a basic lecture on the DSS Box system by a slightly sarcastic but still rather polite Janice, apparently with some assistance from Metang judging from the small pieces of paper covered with drawings the pokemon was holding up. "We can continue this later," Janice said to the creature. "I have some work to do for a bit first." She turned to the others as they untangled themselves from the pad. "Everyone back in their own bodies?"

"I'm finally out of the rabbit," A-0 said looking over the other digital creatures present. "Give me a bit to go over my body and I can give you the full details."

Gazimon gave a huff at the response but nodded. "Yeah, I'm glad to be back to having an actual body."

"We're technically still in each other's scales, but that's fine for now," Serperior said, earning a groan from Janice that surprised the serpent. "Right, I can talk now," he grumbled at the result.

"So when are we getting shoved into 201 for a full workup?" Shawn asked leaning against his starter.

"Right now. You four are the priority, followed by every other pokemon that has been in the Box during this fiasco. Some of the medical staff are already there waiting for you," she replied looking them over again. "Then you're all taking at least a week's break, because three serious incidents in three days is too much." Seeing the long time members of the team starting to complain she cut them off. "If I can't handle whatever else there is after all of that then we need to hire another trainer to help out here. Hopefully this was just a burst of work all at once, but if it is an increase in our rate of issues we need to adapt. So get checked out, find out if there is anything you need to have fixed, and enjoy some free time." She looked over at the Legendary Analysis System as it floated in the air with obvious interest in the happenings shown by a transcript being written on its panes as the conversation progressed. "We should take it while we can."


	9. 1-07 Aftermath

\--- Aftermath ---

"Hey, Gazimon, you doing okay?" Shawn asked the next morning waking up the still sleeping digimon.

"Mnph, what is it?" the digimon asked looking up to the red eyed human standing above him holding a drink can.

"You actually slept in today," Serperior answered. "I figured you'd have as hard a time sleeping as we did."

"Then why did you wake me up?" he asked the snake rubbing his eyes and frowning at how bright it had gotten.

"I figured we could go shopping today since we're barred from working for a week anyway," Shawn replied holding out a piece of paper he was using to transcribe their list. "You should come along to make sure we get the right stuff for you and see if there is anything else that catches your interest."

The digimon looked over his two new roommates. The snake was occupied looking over the small potted plant while the trainer continued to write down the list while drinking. The previous day had ended with a few hours spent mostly going over the side effects on the two of them, with a much shorter discussion of his own body that was hindered by a lack of knowledge on what he should be like in the first place. A-0 had only conversed with its sister to get them started and then moved off to use her equipment on itself rather than join the rest of them.

"You don't have to come along," Shawn said as the silence dragged on. "We can get the stuff just fine, and I'm sure there has to be something here you can do while we're out."

"Alright, I might as well. Maybe I can see what normal people look like in this world," Gazimon said getting up and looking around the room. "Where's your clock?"

Both of the others blinked in confusion at the question. "Why would we need a clock?" Serperior asked.

"Yeah, it's 7:43," Shawn replied without looking at any sort of device.

"Okay, how do you know that?" the rabbit monster asked despite being wary of the answer. The two launched into a synchronized description of the current position of the sun, the season, and other specifications that the digital monster was sure came from the plant nature he could easily see in the serpent's form and had been told was also possessed by the so called human.

"Anyway," Shawn finished as Serperior lifted the pot to move it again, "that's how we can tell the time." He began writing an additional item on the list. "But if it doesn't work for you then I guess we need a clock."

"Okay," the digimon said recovering from the presentation. "Anything I need to know while we're out there?"

The two looked at each other somewhat nervously. "Don't believe anything you hear about us?" they said together partially joking, earning a sigh.

\---

Leaving the Digital Storage Systems facility was far more nerve wracking for Gazimon than he had expected. Shawn easily led the way with Serperior laying entirely across his shoulders for once, with the serpent's body trailing behind the left side of the trainer despite his head hovering to his right. Outside of the clean corporate atmosphere was a paved road that extended towards a good sized town a short distance away. Behind the structure was a treeline that extended out of sight, and across the road was a short field followed by more dense trees. The other end of the road split, with one end extending out into the distance and the other turning off into the forest soon after their location.

"We're set up here mostly because it is one of the major connection points of the region's communication lines," Shawn said pointing at a line of overhead cables leading into the town. "From what I've been told the original building is further into the woods, and while they were constructing this one they kept running the original equipment out there."

The snake pokemon nodded in the direction of the trees, moving his face in front of the trainer to do so and nearly wrapping around Shawn's head entirely. "I've always wondered if there is anything they left behind there," he said wistfully.

They continued into the town itself, passing by a number of fairly similar houses and small apartment buildings to reach the center where two main roads met. At the corner itself was a large building with a red roof featuring a large pokeball sign. A few humans were walking into the building as the trio arrived wearing sizable packs and with visible belts of pokeballs. The digimon could just make out their discussion of how their last Gym battle had been rough and that they were planning on training in the forest before trying the local Gym.

"Well, if it isn't the Troubleshooter," a voice said from the building just past. "How are ya doing Shawn?" An older man stepped up to the group and looked the three of them over. "Is that a new pokemon? I'd thought you were sticking with being a one mon trainer," he continued with a laugh.

"I was serpent that a Gym leader had better things to be doing than skulking around. Then again you are a Dark type trainer," Serperior said jokingly to Gazimon, only to blink in shock as the man laughed at his reply.

"You've finally learned to talk huh? Our loss I guess," he said smiling before he turned back to Gazimon. "David Grim, Leader of the local Gym." He held out a hand with a smile.

"Uh, Gazimon. You work with Dark types?" the digimon asked risking shaking the hand. David nodded in answer of his question while giving a relatively loose grip on the claws.

"Another talker then?" the Gym Leader said happily. "Yes, and I can tell them when I see em." He rummaged through his pockets for a moment before pulling out a small tan claw on a short length of cord. "I also know that this three badge wonder you're with gets in more trouble than that usually implies, so here." The item was quickly looped around Gazimon's still partially extended arm. "A Quick Claw to help you get the drop on whatever you run into."

Gazimon simply stared at the small claw for a moment in confusion before huffing at the amused look on the Leader's face. "Gazimon's aware of how bad it gets," Shawn said with a look that made clear that he had heard the insult. "We're on a bit of a break to cool down after a bad one actually," he continued with a false cheer that held a sinister edge due to his altered eyes. Serperior's own eyes were locked onto the older man's face with their own hint of danger, still blue but restored to slits during the last trip to the medical Box.

"Huh. Those new eyes you've gotten really work for you," David said with a more serious tone. "Make it clearer that he's your family more than anything. Easier to see why you never could catch another."

"Well, we have some shopping to get done," Serperior interrupted. "So while it was great seeing you we must be on our way." The snake pokemon then took charge of moving, almost picking up his trainer and ushering the digimon along past the large building and into a more lively area.

The road the serpent moved them onto featured a number of stores lining the sides with a few small stands setup in the middle. The most prominent of these was a large blue roofed structure with "Poke Mart" written across the front. Gazimon looked over the various items visible and the people looking them over with some trepidation.

One of the closer stands was selling medicine, with a pair of fairly young girls in front discussing how their last battles had been alright but there wasn't very many cheap ways of fixing the resulting scratch marks in their pokemons' fur. One was discussing how she was being prompted by her pokemon to simply make them look tough rather than cute to the consideration of her friend.

"What'd you spot, Gazi?" Serperior asked looking over at the stand, only to see something himself. "Shawn, look! Is that what I think it is?" he said pulling the trainer along and pointing at a box near the center of the stand, well out of reach from anyone standing alongside.

"Oh, Crystal Syrup! That's perfect," Shawn exclaimed looking over the clear case containing two rows of six small tubes, each filled with a glittering liquid. "Delta 2 will be ecstatic." He turned to the stand's saleswoman, who had looked over at the two when Serperior called out. "How much for those?" he asked rummaging through a pocket.

The saleswoman rattled off a number and then smiled while taking a card from the trainer. "Its from the first batch made using a new development a researcher discovered. With any luck it will be much easier to stock," she explained when he noted that it seemed low.

"That would be great," Serperior said looking towards Gazimon. "These are a potent medicine for Grass types. Delta 2 loves having that kind of thing on hand, and I don't know of anything better myself." The snake leaned closer smiling widely. "And if you aren't Grass type at first then it fixes that too."

"Don't worry about that too much," the saleswoman said seeing the surprised look on the digimon's face, and causing the snake to twitch. "That particular side effect only lasts a week."

"I keep forgetting humans could understand me now," the pokemon said embarrassed. "She's right though, it isn't a permanent thing."

"I have enough weird changes to worry about you know," Gazimon said with a hint of anger.

"Sorry, I didn't think about that," Serperior replied nodding. "Delta 2 is definitely not going to be using it on you or anyone else who isn't a Grass type. Even if it is about to be a lot easier to get this stuff it is mostly for critical injuries."

"Which means I'm quite happy to pay this much for it," Shawn interrupted finishing the transaction. "Thank you," he told the saleswoman and led the other two away into the Poke Mart. "This is why we only do this once a month," he told the two with a nearly hissing whisper.

"We should probably do it less often if we could," Serperior said slipping off his trainer's shoulders. "I am sorry about that. It seemed like a good joke about the stuff, and I forgot that you aren't from here. You've managed to handle things so far."

"It wasn't that bad of a joke honestly," Gazimon replied eying the snake as it moved beside him. "Right now I'm actually getting worried about you. You're twitchier than normal."

"Half the fun is seeing humans not understanding that I told a joke," the Grass type said quietly. "A-0 knows that I'm messing with it and my bigger joke is seeing how the others react to it being upset by the smaller joke. You're sorta angry like it gets, so I'm forgetting you're not it." He chuckled a bit nervously. "Yesterday isn't helping with that."

"No, I guess being stuck as him wouldn't help you tell us apart," the digimon said looking at the blue eyes of the serpent. "But try to remember. I'm kinda tired of getting stepped on for someone else's joke." The snake flinched at that statement as they stepped into the store.

Gazimon found himself frozen at the sight that greeted them. Row upon row of items filled the room, with scattered humans looking over them calmly. While the market like area outside was fairly close to something he had seen before the organized variety present here was rather intimidating to him. The many sections filled with obviously combat related items in particular caught his eyes.

Near the ceiling by the counter was a small television showing a battle between a dragon with a flaming tail and a turtle with a pair of cannons on its back. The voices of commentators were barely audible discussing a pair of trainers from somewhere called Kanto and their performance in the local League a few months ago. Serperior pushed him further into the store as he watched a massive blast of pressurized water shoot from one of the cannons at the dragon, who shot into the air with an arrogant smirk.

"Right, we have quite a bit of stuff to get. You might want to stick close, Mr. Grim's pokemon have made them a bit touchy about Dark types," Shawn said leading them off towards the far end of the building to start their shopping.

\---

"Janice, how is the instruction going?" A-0 asked as it moved into the Troubleshooter Lab. The Lead gave it a dark look while the Legendary Analysis System turned from speaking with her.

"Porygon Alpha Zero Box Null, you are present," the creature said happily, earning a glare from A-0 and a smile from Janice and her Metang. "Troubleshooter Lead Janice Grades has been providing significant information while I wait for Trainer Grant's arrival."

"Please call me A-0," the Porygon said with barely restrained anger. "Trainer Grant?" it asked the human without changing expression.

"The fossil hunter is going to be here by the end of the week. A length of time you should be staying out of here," she replied with a raised eyebrow.

"I am barred from performing my job, not from seeing my siblings," the digital pokemon argued defiantly.

"Try again after at least a day," she dryly replied. "What was your particular set of side effects again?" she asked sweetly.

"My worst issues are the result of access to better data, which is a problem simply because certain capabilities of mine are now more effective overall," A-0 said tipping upwards and away from her. Then it dipped a good ways and turned back to the two of them. "Being stuck inside Gazimon gave me a massive data update on advanced digital life form construction and as a side benefit a key link to physical life form operation." It tipped downward while looking fully at the human. "I am partially surprised that I did not evolve as a result of this data update."

"Should I get the specifications of an Upgrade for you?" Janice asked seriously, drawing the full attention of the Legendary Analysis System which flashed pictures of a number of small disks along with question marks.

"No, I can still function without those changes," the pokemon replied strongly. "However, there has been one notable change to my base capabilities. Metang, can you move around the jellyfish?" The fused pokemon shifted slightly to the side while the larger life form moved well out of the way. "My Conversion move now possesses significantly better scanning and alteration capabilities," A-0 continued before flashing.

Its body immediately shifted in shape to be broader and circular, with its head merging downward to form a spike at the front. The two pylons at its sides extended outward forming short thin connectors to the main body and detailed claws. In just a moment the Porygon became a near perfect copy of the Steel/Psychic type pokemon, with the only notable difference being the flat colors of its body not properly matching the original.

"My Conversion has effectively become a variant on Transform," it said in a slightly off mimicry of Metang's voice, made distinct by A-0's different take on a robotic tone. "It will take some effort to recreate the original functionality now." The changed body flickered for a moment before flashing back to the basic Porygon form, A-0 dipping in the air for a moment. "It also requires notably more power to maintain, especially in the physical world."

"I can guess why you are personally not fond of that sort of ability, but I would think you'd be happier with learning how to teach it to other Porygon?" the Lead questioned, earning a bob and the flash of the word 'Teach!' on the Legendary Analysis System.

"Actually using it isn't something that can be taught," the Porygon replied with a sigh. "The execution is dependent on some error filled portions of my data that are the result of the switch with Gazimon. Delta 2 suspects it is a modification of his own evolution code, or at least related to that data."

"That is worrying," Janice said. "Enough so that I'm still quite certain you need some time away from the Boxes," she continued getting a defeated sigh from the pokemon.

"Very well. I will find something else to do in the meantime," it relented floating back out of the room. "Good luck with the life form."

Janice sighed as it exited the room. "Right, where did we leave off?" she asked the large digital creature, which floated nervously scrolling data on its panes too rapidly to read.

"Documentation on problems resulting from use of Heart Swap historically, and comparisons to the pokemon I've afflicted with them," it said guiltily.

\---

They left the store without any visible difference in their appearance. The sheer amount of supplies that had been packed away in Shawn's fairly small bag was still confusing the digimon, and the amount the store seemed to possess wasn't much better. "Where do they even keep it all?" Gazimon asked looking back at the building trying to judge how large it actually was.

Shawn laughed at the question. "That's actually really ironic to ask," he told the rabbit like monster pointing in the direction they had come from. "Digital Storage Solutions' main business is still bulk storage of items for companies that allows multiple locations to access the inventory from across the region. The Box system started as a side project by the development team that took off, and even then we still are second in importance compared to the massive item storage servers that companies like that use to keep their stuff."

The digimon stopped walking and looked between the store and the direction the trainer had pointed. "Wait, does that mean we just walked all the way over here to get stuff that was already in the building we are living in?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes," Serperior started, getting a surprised look from a passing trainer that deflated his posture slightly. "But places like that don't really want us to be taking stuff out ourselves regardless of if we pay for it first."

"Technically it is probably in bulk storage. We don't really have a way of getting individual things out ourselves, that is the kind of thing they do for larger quantities of stuff in a back room to stock up," Shawn corrected. "Do you want to keep looking around for stuff?" the trainer asked Gazimon somewhat nervously.

"Calling you all 'battle mad' doesn't really cover it does it?" the digimon replied after a moment of thought on everything he had seen during the day. "Even the humans around here seem to love seeing who would win if you had a fight." He looked at his claws, turning them back and forth and inspecting the points. "A-0 was able to use my own body to fight that giant spike clam without a worry."

"A-0 might not be the best example of that. It's a lot stronger than it acts," Serperior commented. "That mess makes it a lot harder to gauge strength."

"Even just the fight against the black things in the cave was tougher than I'm used to Gazimon managing. Whatever you've all done to me has made me a little stronger." The rabbit monster sighed and scratched between his ears. "I did a lot of things trying to be on top, to push others around, and I've never seen anything like what A-0 did with this before," he said tapping his chest. "'Trainer' means someone who makes you that strong, right?"

"That is part of it," Shawn began to answer. "Trainers are people who build up teams of pokemon to explore the world and compete against each other. The main goal is to learn how to care for pokemon so that they can become better fighters, but you also need to know how to travel the world, do some basic medical tasks, keep your team fed, and other things related to being a leader."

"How big is your team?" Gazimon asked curiously, earning nervous glances from the pair.

"It is actually just the two of us," Serperior confessed rubbing his head with his tail.

"Does that have to do with that 'three badge' thing the Dark guy said? You need more to have a bigger team or something?" the digimon continued to the increasing embarrassment of his companions.

"Actually it is basically the exact opposite of that," Shawn said leading them away from the few other people nearby. "A Gym Badge is earned by challenging a Pokemon Gym, a place where a powerful trainer teaches others about how to care for and improve pokemon, usually all of the same type. Each Badge challenge is meant to be a test of how well you've learned to train pokemon."

"Generally it is just the fights getting tougher and trickier the more Badges you already have," Serperior continued. "Which we worked hard to keep up with just having the two of us. Three Gyms is actually far more than a trainer should attempt with just one pokemon, and the last one we got decided to use her five Badge team instead of her normal three Badge one to make us prove we could do it." The snake pokemon raised his body proudly at that statement. "It was a wonderful victory in my humble opinion," he said not at all humbly.

"But part of being a trainer is supposed to be caring for multiple pokemon, not just one really powerful one. So nobody would give us a battle to try for the fourth," Shawn continued with a sigh. "Another part of the journey is looking for something to do with your life. A task or job that fits what you do and who you are. After Mr. Grim sent us off we ran into Janice looking for help, and here we are."

The digimon slouched at the explanation. "So you two aren't up for additional teammates then?" he asked disappointed. "Any idea where would be the best place to find someone?"

The snake eyed pair once again looked at each other for a moment. "I think we might be willing to take you on," Serperior suggested slowly, getting an unsure nod from Shawn.

"Uh huh, that's definitely what your faces are saying right now," Gazimon sarcastically replied.

"A-0 is basically on the team already," Shawn admitted with difficulty. "Honestly all things considered my own inability might be a bigger issue here."

"That's actually a good point," the snake pokemon agreed sadly. "We've not even tried working with anyone else like that before. However, I do want to help you if we can." The Grass type moved to look Gazimon in the eye. "You're in a bad situation, and out of everyone in the world we are the ones responsible for dealing with it, and you have already helped out immensely with our other work. We owe you to at least try if you want us to train you." The digimon made to contradict him. "If not for you, I would have attacked the Legendary Analysis System without consideration or mercy. If nothing else you have saved that life, and that is important," the pokemon stressed.

The short speech seemed to have given the pair more confidence about the idea. "Alright then, what is the process for joining you? Is there some form or something to fill out?" Gazimon asked with a joking tone, only to pale at the sudden wide smiles it produced.

"Ah, well the way it usually works is that a wild pokemon will come up to a trainer and attack them," Shawn began as he maneuvered the group into a large clear area. This statement causes the few people nearby to take note, and to clear a good ways back. "Then they fight the trainer's pokemon for a bit to show their stuff, and if the trainer decides they want the pokemon then they throw a pokeball at them." He took a black and white pokeball with yellow stripes out of his bag.

"Then the pokemon has a chance to back out by forcing their way out of the ball," Serperior began as Shawn made to toss the ball into the air to catch again. However, rather than the sphere simply landing in his palm there was a loud click sound followed by the trainer vanishing in a flash of white light. Everyone present simply stared for a moment at the slightly shaking ball until it let out another slightly quieter click and went still. "We did check that my pokeball still worked right?" the snake asked the digimon.

"Yeah, first thing Delta 2 had us do," Gazimon answered easily, his slight annoyance at the rather unneeded demonstration vanishing as he noticed the disbelieving looks around them. "That wasn't supposed to happen was it?" he asked as the pokemon slid over to press the button on the front of the sphere.

"Serp, let's keep my ball with you," Shawn said as he rematerialized, acting as if nothing unusual had happened. "I don't want us both in at the same time." The serpent picked up the sphere warily. "So, are you up to fighting to prove yourself?" The smiles returned far too quickly in Gazimon's opinion, but he still nodded.

"Right, let's go back and get ready then," Serperior said cheerfully, earning a quickly hidden look of surprise from his trainer. "I think we've made enough scenes for the month," he hissed at Shawn, managing to not speak like a human for the first time since the switch.

\---

"I take it you three are done with normal human interaction for a while?" A-0 asked floating in the lobby of the building as they returned.

"Did you get kicked out of the lab for a while?" Serperior replied a touch harshly before explaining. "Shawn got himself caught, Gazimon wants to join the team, and everyone understands my jokes. This is almost as bad as last year's craft fair."

The Porygon dropped slightly in the air at that. "You burnt down a stand last year!" it exclaimed looking over the plant pokemon. "Do we need to be ready for the cops to show up?"

"I have a pokeball now," Shawn said pointing to the ultra ball being held by Serperior, earning a loud sigh from the digital pokemon.

"As far as I was aware it was the only other pokeball you owned at the moment," A-0 said dryly. "I'm guessing you mean in the same way the one on your belt is Serperior's pokeball?" The trainer nodded. "And you for some reason want to join these two?"

"I want to learn how to fight better," Gazimon answered. "That's apparently the kind of thing he's at least supposed to do."

"You could probably do worse," the Porygon said with little confidence. "They at least have one powerhouse. I'd personally say keep out of whatever new ball they find rather than going the full way, but being able to not deal with walking around is apparently a big benefit." It turned to look at Serperior. "So do I have to worry about you beating him up in public?" it asked the serpent with a touch of anger. "He does still need to be able to train in using his new abilities with me as well."

Shawn laughed at that response. "Janice kicked you out then?" The glare he received from the statement only increased the laughter. "We work with you far too much to fall for that, A-0. Still, you do have a point about that having been my only empty ball." He rubbed his neck. "Also Serp already stopped me from having the battle in the middle of a crowd."

"Does using this thing really matter so much?" Gazimon asked the digital pokemon while holding out his hand. He staggered as a black pane formed in mid air right in front of the claws, and then proceeded to fall to the ground instantly and smash into rapidly disappearing shards.

"That would actually be lesson number 0," A-0 said with a hint of pride in the digimon's actions. "Digital constructs in the physical world still act using standard physics unless you specifically alter them." It then made a single pink pane of its own that bobbed slightly on creation and was obviously held in the air. "Along with that they are more costly with regards to the energy you expend making them, and as most things are not based on data they are far less useful." It shattered the pane and nodded at Gazimon. "It took me months to stop making them out here from simple habit, and then dropping them like that."

"You've done some cool stuff with it," Serperior countered. "It still allows some degree of connection with computer systems after all."

"Most of which aren't that useful compared to Box admin functionality," it replied sticking its head in the air.

"Is there an arena or something for us to do this battle in?" Gazimon asked Shawn as the two pokemon got into a minor argument over the specific functions available in the physical world.

"Uh, the only place like that is the Gym," the trainer admitted nervously, causing the digimon to deflate and shake his head. "But battles can happen just about anywhere, and wild pokemon don't exactly line up at the Gym looking for trainers." He looked thoughtfully at his starter for a moment. "Or at least I've never seen anything like that. Maybe they do try and find trainers that way too."

"Well, can we put that off till tomorrow? Today has been rather rough," the digimon asked hopefully as he looked at the massive serpent's powerful body and recalled how easily it had been used to smash smaller digital creatures.

Shawn looked over the group before answering, stopping on his new pokeball and on the small claw on the rabbit monster's wrist. "Yeah, I think we can find something else to do the rest of today instead," he agreed.


	10. 1-08 Battles

\--- Battles ---

Gazimon scrambled across the ground out of the way of the extremely telegraphed Slam attack Serperior used to start the battle. He still barely made it out of the way of the attack despite the serpent both moving quite obviously and much slower than the digimon had ever seen from him. The resulting spiderweb of cracks along the ground was in no way comforting, and the realization that the digital worlds where they had fought before simply could not mimic the effect left him wondering how badly a full power attack would have damaged the terrain. A part of him wondered if his request the day before had been a mistake.

"Leaf Blade," Shawn said coldly but clearly, his red eyes making him look far more sinister. Once again the path of the attack was easily predicted as the pokemon quite deliberately prepared for it, but the digimon still needed to throw himself out of the way before the large leaf flashed through the area cutting a small trench through the ground.

With memories of being nearly stepped on by giant dinosaurs filling his mind Gazimon went with the best option for that situation and dug underground. The soil seemed to move aside more easily than he was used to as he went below it, and he also found himself with a clearer picture of where the snake pokemon was laying across the ground.

"Leaf Blade as he exits," the trainer said, strangely clear to hear through the soil. Nerves tense from the capability of his foes the digimon carefully dug a false exit a short distance from where he planned to actually surface. The technique had saved his hide once before, and he wasn't fond of learning if his fur could stand up to the pokemon's razor sharp leaves.

He had his claws ready as he broke the surface, just barely scraping Serperior's scales with the black energy coated strike. There was a terrifying smile on the snake and another gouge in the ground cutting across the small hole made by his deception. "Dark type," the serpent proudly said in the same tone as his trainer.

Thoroughly scared he dove back under the ground, hearing a short laugh as he dodged below the surface nearby. "Slam it closed," the trainer said, and fully knowing what a Champion like Serperior could do to underground tunnels the digimon quickly dug back out at an angle. While this prevented an attack of his own it left the rabbit monster well out of the way of the earth shattering attack.

Despite this he still ended up flat on the ground from the tremor that resulted, and right after he felt the light scratch of a blade along the back of his neck. "You're done, Gazi," the serpent said in a much lighter tone. "That was honestly pretty great for your condition," Serperior continued jovially. "Against most ten to twenties that trick strike with the pit would have probably won you the match, and the few that could take that wouldn't have been able to catch you after that dive right back down."

"Yeah, honestly you're really good at staying out of the way and hitting when they don't expect it for a low level fighter," Shawn agreed with a far kinder look in his serpentine eyes. "What we need to work on is mostly just getting you in better shape and a larger attack variety." He walked closer to the panting digital monster slowly. "Any particular reason you didn't try your third attack?"

Spitting out a bit of dirt Gazimon picked himself up off the ground. "Because I know how fast he can move. By the time I'm ready to spit it out he'll be wrapped around me tight enough that it will be the last thing I exhale," he answered darkly while glaring at the pair. Their happy nods at his response made him turn and huff while looking over the damage to the path.

There were two massive sets of cracks in the packed dirt, the second also containing the collapsed remains of his quick tunnel. A pair of holes in the ground from the previous tunneling attack were still visible, along with the pair of slash marks from the Grass type blade attacks. The plant reptile had already started leveling the ground in the area with a surprising degree of skill. Shawn joined in soon after in helping to pack down cracks and fill in the holes. Before the digimon could manage to react to the result the two had restored the land to be nearly the same as when they had started.

"Is fixing battlefields part of the training?" Gazimon asked warily at the result as they started moving back to the facility.

"Yes, but it tends to be something you learn as part of figuring out what else you can do with attacks," Serperior answered stopping to make sure he was following. "For instance you would not believe how helpful it is to fill in holes and cracks to stop an enemy from using them for their own attack." The plant rubbed his back with a leafy arm. "You'd be very surprised by how fast liquid fire can travel down them."

\---

"I see you survived," A-0 said as they entered the building. "What's the verdict?"

"He needs a few weeks of fighting things about his speed, or a few days with medical mad at us for overworking him," Serperior said easily.

"Probably should go up against some wild pokemon for a bit before going against another trained pokemon in a real battle. It would be less structured, which will help with preparing to turn different situations around, but shouldn't be too hard for him," Shawn continued looking thoughtful. "You've already got a good idea of what to do to keep out of the way of strong foes, but part of this idea is getting you stronger yourself. That means you will need to deal with enemies you can win against but also aren't trivial to take out. So we need to work on the kind of opponents you run away from or play around with," he addressed the digimon directly.

"I didn't even tell you about that," Gazimon grumbled, although he looked slightly intimidated by how accurate the assessment had been. "Why not the normal training stuff? You know, hitting things and going through martial arts stances and stuff?" he asked with some confusion, only to get an equally confused reaction from the others.

"Did we miss you being a Fighting type?" A-0 asked with intense sarcasm. "Dark types might work out how to hit things harder, but when it comes to fighting they are much more interested in taking every cheap shot they can find or make."

"At best we might try and teach you how to use a Fighting typed move, if you are able to learn one," Shawn added. "That would give you some strong offense against a number of types. We will be doing some conditioning work, but from what I've seen of you the biggest issue is that you don't even want to fight unless pushed." The trainer paused and blinked a couple of times after saying this, and then shared a look with Serperior. "Which actually makes a lot of sense if you think this whole world is battle mad compared to your own."

"Hitting hard and lasting a while is important, but if you can't apply it due to not being used to fighting then it will just make things harder for you," Serperior said rubbing his head with the end of his tail. "I will admit I can't think of how to help with wanting to fight in the first place. Even pokemon that are mostly pets will still roughhouse with others, and their owners generally will arrange rather tame battles amongst themselves."

The four moved to the room set aside to act as a cafeteria for those who lived in the building. While they weren't after a true meal the group did recommend Gazimon get something to eat to build his energy up. The snack items were still unfamiliar to the digimon, but he allowed Shawn to get a few for him.

"So, why avoid another trainer's pokemon?" he asked the human of the group while picking at his food.

"Wild pokemon generally are less conditioned, and more likely to be tripped up by complex plans. Even if we do run into some stronger than you physically you already have a good idea of how to get around that," Shawn answered absentmindedly taking a piece of food from Serperior's pile.

"A trainer's main job during a fight is to see what the opponents are doing and give instruction based on that. Which means in that kind of fight you have two sets of senses after you rather than just one, and you need to have a better idea of what tricks can work in general before you have to deal with them being spotted by a trainer," Serperior added taking a piece from his trainer's bag. "The fact you are a Dark type actually makes that part worse, especially around here. Trainers who know their types will be expecting tricks when they see you, and with a Dark type Gym right next to us anyone who we run into will definitely know that one at a minimum."

A-0 looked between the two, specifically between the two identical packages set in front of them, and sighed. "Fighting some wild pokemon might also give you a better idea of what pokemon are in general than just dealing with trained ones, which is all that you've met so far," it said looking somewhat uneasy. "While those that challenge trainers tend to have some idea what that can get them, it is still the case that in the wild any real fight is probably intended to kill. Either for food, or to make sure you aren't food."

"Well, that doesn't exactly help my appetite," Gazimon replied looking at the bags on the table. "So how far am I going to be fighting them? Like you figured, I haven't really fought anyone that I could really hurt unless they were so weak I didn't even bother actually attacking."

"If they were as fragile as the digital life forms we've encountered so far, excepting the giant jellyfish, then you probably will be alright for now," Serperior said thoughtfully. "Learning to gauge how far you can attack someone takes time and practice, but with newly caught pokemon the trainer is the one who should be stopping things before they go too far, and I'm also going to be the one making sure they don't take the fight too far with you. If things get rough Shawn will send me in to take them down for you."

"Which means you have plenty of backup," Shawn said and then briefly looked at A-0 nervously. "But one of the main ways that trainers keep their pokemon safe in that case is by returning them to their pokeballs. We might just have to keep everybody out while doing this, which might scare off some of the lower level pokemon you should be trying yourself against."

"Wild pokemon that are tough enough to challenge you in that state should also be wise enough to know how to fight trainers," A-0 said smugly, only to get unimpressed looks from the trainer and starter pair.

"Right, know how you aren't supposed to judge normal human capabilities from me?" Shawn asked Gazimon who merely groaned. "I think it is safe to say A-0 isn't a source of wild pokemon facts."

"Not to mention that it is sometimes a problem for some trainers. Remember that old lady who thought us having two badges was reason enough to sic her 'little snookums' on us?" Serperior said warily. "It was a fully evolved monster of a pokemon that she let do whatever it wanted no matter how much it hurt the target. It turned out the reason she cared about badges was that she'd gotten in trouble before for having it go all out on some poor starting trainer."

"Yeah, that kid got lucky with that type advantage," the trainer said uneasily.

"Type advantage?" Gazimon asked partially to change the subject.

"Do you have properties that consistently provide a boost or reduction in combat capability?" A-0 asked.

"For one that's what the difference is between Viral, Vaccine, and Data Attributes for digimon. Vaccine beats Viral beats Data beats Vaccine," the rabbit like monster said repeating something he had been told. "There might be some other things too, but I never really learned more than that." The digimon shrugged. "It wasn't a priority and that at least told us to deal with the Vaccines quickly while we could play around with any Datas," he continued absentmindedly.

While A-0 looked a bit surprised by the statement the other two simply nodded. "Yeah, that kind of thing. There are 18 types that pokemon have," Shawn said not noticing the horrified face of Gazimon as he realized what he had told them. "Each can be neutral, effective against, resisted by, or immune to each of the other types." This time the lost look this produced on the digimon was noticed and the trainer stopped. "Right, well for the Dark type the situation is that you are immune to Psychic type moves, resist Dark and Ghost types, and vulnerable to Bug and Fighting typed moves. So pokemon with those first three as their main types are more restricted because pokemon tend to have moves the same type as themselves. Bugs and martial artist pokemon are your biggest problem as they have moves that are effective against you."

"But it is the move that matters?" Gazimon asked. "You guys made my digging into Ground, right?"

"Yes, which means the plume of dirt at the end is really effective against Electric, Fire, Poison, Rock, and Steel types. As you can guess Flying types can entirely avoid it, making them immune, and Grass or Bug types resist it," Serperior said getting a sigh from Porygon.

"There are other methods to avoid it as well. The method I use to improve my levitation outside of digital worlds is the move Magnet Rise, and it provides that protection as well," A-0 informed the digimon flashing the rearmost face of its left pylon.

"So a type advantage is when you have moves that are better against your enemy than your own, and pokemon that are of a given type tend to have moves of the same type?" Gazimon asked quickly. He now seemed to want the impromptu lesson on complex things cut short, and was attempting to show understanding to bring it to an end.

"Or when your own type resists the moves an opponent has, which was the case with the kid's pokemon," Shawn said appearing to understand the sentiment. "So the pokemon could take the punishment the half wild foe was giving it long enough for them to rescue their partner."

"Speaking of type advantage," Janice said from behind the group. "Metang and I are both free for the first time since this whole mess started and we also need to be doing some training." She was standing just behind Shawn with the Steel/Psychic floating calmly beside her.

"Combat capacity is limited, and requirements indicated it shall be necessary for later operations," the pokemon said looking at the four of them. "Structure is vulnerable to weaker combatant's type, however general status is higher."

"I dunno," Serperior said thoughtfully. "Gazi's better off than you're implying there." Once more the serpent flinched at the comprehension on a non-Shawn human's face.

"Going up against him is still better than my other options," Janice said, having determined what Metang had said from how she was used to inferring what a pokemon had said from the replies of those that did understand them. "I'm not actually a trainer myself," she told them for the digimon's benefit. "So I don't have the experience to just head outside and find random opponents while also keeping Metang safe."

"Well Gazimon, are you up for seeing how you stack up?" Shawn asked as the digimon looked at the white claws and stony body of the metallic type with a hint of fear.

"Fine," Gazimon agreed with a crack of his voice that ruined the attempted bravado.

\---

They were outside again soon after, with the only reminder of Gazimon's earlier fight in the area being a slight indentation in the path. Serperior, Shawn, and Metang were confident in the upcoming battle. A-0 was floating uneasily recruited as a relatively neutral judge to officiate the battle. Janice and Gazimon were looking at each other with some unease. The Legendary Analysis System had found them in the hallway, and rather than accept their assurances that it had other things it could do it followed them to record the event.

"Digimon training battle starting?" the creature asked eagerly after producing four of the small dome shaped drones to mark the corners of the planned battlefield.

"I'll let you know when," A-0 replied testily, still nervous about its job during the match. "Right, one on one pokemon battle. No combat items, held or otherwise permitted. Fight is until one side surrenders or a combatant has been judged unable to continue safely," it said repeating the conditions unnecessarily. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," Metang said tiredly, soon echoed by Janice.

"Yeah," Gazimon replied a moment later.

"Alright, go!"

"Night Slash," Shawn ordered immediately. Gazimon, however, hesitated for a moment as he was unused to both the name the trainer was using for his attack and instantly obeying orders.

"Metal Claw," Janice replied soon after, with her short delay before doing so resulting in the two combatants moving at nearly the same time.

Gazimon, well used to large monsters attempting to claw at him, slid sideways around Metang's double handed attack. While this made his own attack only lightly graze his foe he did see the blue pokemon flinch away from the contact of the black glow that extended a fair way past his physical claws, a new aspect that the digimon was still adapting to since the changes made to him. Looking back he could see the grey edges of Metang's move cutting shallow trenches in the dirt and a small patch of his own fur floating to the ground.

"Hit him hard," Janice told the Steel/Psychic type still a bit uneasy in her tone.

"Dig down," Shawn responded quickly smiling at the result of the first move.

Gazimon reacted more rapidly this time, his instincts for the situation agreeing with the trainer entirely. He was completely under the ground by the time Metang slammed into his location with a strong Take Down, the somewhat reckless attack briefly knocking the pokemon off balance.

"Stay up high," the Troubleshooter Lead instructed her stony partner, and Gazimon's sense of his target's location dimmed slightly. Recalling the explanation just before of how A-0 stayed in the air he figured this was also the Magnet Rise move they had been discussing. While his current attack was apparently similar to the local move Dig, it was still made to create pitfall traps under foes, and his own time in the Porygon's body gave him some idea of how much the lift relied on pushing off the ground. So he carefully setup a good drop underneath his foe with the hope of interrupting the move temporarily.

"Hit like earlier," the experienced trainer shouted to the digimon audibly through the dirt. The rabbit like monster couldn't help but smirk under the soil understanding Shawn meant to slash as he emerged from the ground.

"Metal Claw when he comes back up," Janice said to her own teammate, who responded with a low beep.

With careful timing Gazimon let the pit drop beneath the opposing pokemon with himself at the edge. As the stony blue pokemon stumbled downward he slashed upwards along their side, his attack mostly hitting his unsteady target. Metang grunted and responded with an unsteady double armed slash hampered by both of the prior attacks. The digimon quickly dodged backwards mostly out of the way, by coincidence ending up back in front of Shawn with Metang floating back near Janice.

"Well now, that was a bit rougher than I expected," Shawn said obviously amused as Gazimon steadied himself from the glancing hit.

"Yeah, I can see why I agreed to this," Janice replied warily. "Are you still good to go, Metang?" The metallic pokemon gave an affirmative, although with a hint of unease. "Slam him down," she instructed as strongly as she could manage.

"One last slash, Gazimon," the trainer stated with the same calm amusement.

The digimon took in the feel of his foe, who he for some reason thought to be nearly beaten despite the lack of visible damage. Confident from his success so far he charged forward into the path of the rushing stony pokemon. At the last moment he dove into a slide under Metang, raking the black coating around his claws down the center of the pokemon's body.

Metang dropped from the air and clanged against the ground twice before letting out a sore beep. They pushed themselves up to stand on their clawed arms and sighed. "We are beaten," they said sadly.

"I hope that was just a surrender," Janice said calmly, but obviously disappointed. "If not then I'm giving one."

"It was one," Shawn replied still in his calm amusement. "Great job Gazimon."

"I won," Gazimon whispered, looking with wonder at the trainer.

"Difference in power was smaller than originally believed," Metang said apologetically. "Combat skill of foe was notably larger."

"From the active scans you are approximately level 23," the Legendary Analysis System said attempting to be helpful. "Digital Monster Gazimon is currently at a tentative level 18. This difference is relatively minor."

"Part of the issue is that you were a bit slow with your responses," Shawn said to his fellow human. "I can give you some tips on that, but a big part of directing a battle is finding your own balance between instruction and initiative." He began to walk closer to her, with Serperior smiling widely as he convinced Gazimon to help fill in the new holes in the dirt. "I'm better at the latter, having my partner know what to do on their own while I give the information they need to plan something themselves." His tone remained at the edge of the somewhat cold amusement he had carried throughout the battles. "A big part of that is working with them outside of battles. Making sure they have things they have practiced implementing, and educating them on how various opponents can strike at them."

"How about the other kind of trainer?" she asked him with a regained calm.

"They train their pokemon with absolute trust. The pokemon learns to react to the trainer's instructions quickly and cleanly, and the trainer practices giving them the same way. They tend to be better practiced with fewer variations of the same move, and as a result are more powerful with using them," he continued. "They tend to have larger teams so that the various pokemon can compensate for any holes in each other's defenses."

"That kind of trainer is a lot stronger than it sounds," Serperior contributed. "You can think around them, but they tend to be higher level than you as their pokemon are focused on just their strength rather than splitting time to train their reasoning too. Even when they aren't higher level the attacks are still near their peak performance, so you need to avoid them more." The pokemon looked Janice in the eyes. "With that kind of battle you are really fighting the trainer, and they aren't available to hit to get them off their game."

The two humans continued talking about the subject for a short time before heading back, with the various monsters contributing what they could. As they left Janice hung to the back of the group and motioned for A-0 to join her.

"I take it you've seen Shawn like this before?" Janice asked A-0 quietly, having regained a bit of her harsh tone.

"Cold as a serpent?" the Porygon replied. "There is a reason I agree with calling them the snake twins. When they are serious they both turn into blocks of ice. Serperior still hesitates some at those times, but Shawn always keeps his head."

"I guess I found a good trainer for what we needed then," she commented thoughtfully, with her only response being a bob of the digital pokemon's body.


	11. 1-09 Technical Machines

\--- Technical Machines ---

Gazimon had spent the past few days fighting a variety of birds, rodents, and the occasional low tier trainer who had the unfortunate luck to mistake a happy Shawn for a fair opponent. The number of names he had been called by all three categories was making it almost feel like he was back home in the digital world, while the string of victories tied to them was still leaving the digimon confused.

His body was improving notably, with muscles becoming larger and stronger along with improved stamina. Both of which were thoroughly freaking him out at this point. "Will she be able to tell?" he asked A-0 while they all walked to the Troubleshooter lab.

"Delta 2 is still dealing with the fallout of this whole mess, and if I don't know what is normal for one of your kind of digital life form then nobody on this planet does," the pokemon replied giving a glare to the other two members of the team as they kept at the front of the group, leaning against each other like always. "LAS on the other hand has a better sensor array than mine, so she can let me see if it is something I can tell much more easily."

"When is her trainer going to show up?" Serperior asked looking back at them. "I want to see the fireworks from having her decide she's female just because her initials can be said the same as 'lass'."

"Given how the fossil pokemon reacted to that it probably won't be as entertaining as you expect," Shawn warned the serpent. "He's had longer to come to terms with her bigger issues than you've had your eyes back to normal."

Blue slits focused on the trainer. "From where I'm slithering you're the one with my eyes. Yours just needed a bit of reshaping."

"So, the Analysis System can check to see what's happened to me?" Gazimon interrupted worried. "Because I'm sure now, eighty percent sure, that digimon aren't supposed to have this sort of gradual buildup. One big boost or nothing at all, that's the way its supposed to be." There was a desperate quality to his tone, and the rest of the group was trying to keep him calm by not bringing up that he didn't have any prior experience with dedicated training to compare to.

"Alright, LAS, they're here," Janice said tiredly. The massive jellyfish creature gave a happy crackle of electricity. "Then you can go back to the development team and leave me alone," she continued a bit more quietly.

"New data on Digimon Gazimon," the creature said happily in a now more feminine tone. "Trainer Grant will be pleased with additional information on rare not-pokemon!"

"Hello LAS," Shawn said calmly, echoed by Serperior. A-0 greeted the group in the room as a whole rather than the other digital life form directly, getting a response from the Water/Electric creature, Janice, and Metang.

"You sound better," Gazimon commented somewhat confused by his own declaration. "Anyway, we're here because I'm getting stronger."

Janice gave the rabbit like monster a dark look. "Isn't that the whole point of training?" she asked dryly unamused.

"It should be in bursts! Like updating software," he replied angrily, then shot a dark look at A-0. "Now I'm saying tech stuff," he grumbled quietly in response to the other aspect of training he was going through, the use of his pane formation ability granted as a result of side effects from the body swap.

"Confirmed?" the LAS asked warily. "Digital life forms require component updates to upgrade statistics. Own systems have had two such updates during time outside of artificial digital world," she continued projecting the relevant scans across her body.

A-0 looked quite concerned at this response. "Can you do a full scan of Gazimon and give me the data, along with a copy of that? I have my own scans of his progress so far and I want to compare directly," it asked in a rush.

"Creating data storage of past and current Gazimon and Legendary Analysis System condition scans," she replied. A pair of her frontal panes displayed the two pieces of data, then seemed to peel outwards like shedding skin as they duplicated themselves. The duplicates folded into relatively small cubes, which the digital life form caught easily in her tendrils.

The Porygon quickly took the two cubes and opened panes to look at their data, sagging very slightly under the strain of lifting both of them in the physical world. "Let me see," it said out loud while scrolling through the information. After a moment it deliberately dropped lower to the ground before opening a third pane to compare with, now setting the fragile constructs on the floor to rest. "Interesting, Gazimon is likely right. He definitely is not progressing the same way as LAS," it concluded after a moment. "Instead he is progressing more like my own improvement. While I cannot be fully sure he's acting differently from a normal digimon from this, I can confirm he is acting like a pokemon."

"Digimon Gazimon is now level 25 equivalent," the LAS informed the group. "With three current moves: one Dark Physical, one Ground Physical, and one Unidentified Special. All deal damage as part of their operation. Current scan does not show any developing moves." The panes of her body each showed a set of indicators representing one of the three moves. "Is Gazimon a stone evolution?" she asked curiously. "Stone evolutions are known to cut off normal move pool growth."

"Should I even try to get into that with her?" Gazimon asked looking much calmer at having been proven right.

"Probably not, you're the only one your method applies to so she can't compare with anything else to make sure," Shawn said resting his hand on his chin. "Although she does bring up a good point, you could benefit from some more moves."

"Try some TMs on him then?" Serperior asked interested in the idea. "Which ones did we keep?" He slid down to look in the trainer's bag.

A-0 shattered its three panes and lifted itself back into the air. Seeing Gazimon's confusion over the pair looking over a container with a few disks inside it explained. "Technical Machines are small systems designed to impart the knowledge of how to perform a move onto a pokemon," it said. The LAS realized what was happening and began to produce visuals across her surface along with the description. "They work by implanting an energy pattern of a given move into the pokemon's body, and more advanced ones also upload some information into the pokemon's subconscious." A picture matching the disks in the container flashed on the panes, followed by a figure setting it on a rodent pokemon's head. Then the device produced a small bubble containing a ball of fire and connected it to the pokemon. "The pokemon can use this for a time to mimic the energy manipulation to perform the move, and by doing so learn to do it without the aid of the temporary pattern." The rodent was shown sending small dots down the connection until a large dot went back to the pokemon who spat a fireball. Then it repeated, showing the bubble growing slightly less clear. Finally the pokemon simply spat a fireball without using the bubble. "Early models used a fairly fragile interface that at best required significant refurbishment or repair to use again. The transfer process simply caused too much damage to the device itself. More modern ones like those I see with Shawn are able to be used repeatedly."

"The only one we've used that we still have is number 22, Solar Beam," Serperior said sadly. "We had an 86, Grass Knot, but it was one of the older style."

"Middle style," Shawn corrected. "I kept the core part for a while in case we found someone who could fix it. I planned on giving it to whoever could, but we needed a bit of cash around then so I sold it instead."

"How complex are we talking about here?" Gazimon asked curious now. "I mean, I know you could alter my own abilities in the digital worlds you have, but this is just moving energy around right?"

"Not quite," Janice replied. "The abilities added by a TM are generally fairly simple in execution, but they also allow for more options outside a pokemon's types. The conversion of energy to a new type is a notable thing to learn, even in a minor way." She then looked to the trainer. "Compatibility might be an issue though, what do you have that is fairly universal?"

"Toxic and Double Team, numbers 6 and 32," Shawn replied a bit disappointed. "The first is probably not as useful as his current sorta Poison type move, and the latter I think I can teach him without the TM."

"What other models do you possess?" Metang asked using their connection to the lab's systems to speak in human for their partner's benefit. Shawn shook his head at the obvious attempt by the Steel/Psychic to have one used on them.

"The full list is 6, 15, 18, 22, 28, 32, and 76," Serperior said lifting the case to reveal the disks. They were sorted in the order he listed and colored based on type, with purple, then off white, blue, light green, a darker green, and finally brown colored containers.

"You two prefer Solar to Hyper then?" Janice asked with a bit of interest. "I'm kinda surprised that number 11 isn't there given that."

"Solar Beam is for extreme situations now, it worked while we were using it but," Shawn said trailing off and looking sadly at the transfer machine.

"If the issue is with determining compatibility I have an idea," A-0 said in its normal tone for when it tried to use something that sounded correct to convince others to do what it wanted. "Alpha 45 has her contract with a lab developing Technical Machines. Of anyone we know she might be best equipped to help us figure out if it is safe to use one on Gazimon."

Janice in particular gave the pokemon a glare in response to his obvious secondary motive. "That is true," she said slowly. "You four are also doing fine." The Troubleshooter Lead looked over the assembled group, causing the LAS to shuffle backwards away from the team.

"Is there a way to contact the team she works with?" Shawn asked. "See if they have any advice on the difference between digital and physical world results?"

"She has a specialized digital camera system that allows for limited two way communication. A refinement of its functionality was one of the two fully accounted for power discrepancies," Janice said somewhat calmed by the serious consideration. "Which actually means the fastest way I have to get you into contact is to send you into the Box." A-0 perked up notably at this concession.

\---

"Sibling, this is a great time for you to visit!" Alpha 45 said to them just after they arrived. Her physical appearance was nearly the default for a Porygon with white and dark yellow colored panes instead of pink and blue respectively. The only physical difference from the norm was that the central portion of her body had what seemed to be a slot for TMs in the center. "We are making great progress with the most complex project yet," she continued happily floating in front of each of them. A small camera attached to a much larger digital construct then floated up next to her.

"Oh, the response team," said a voice as an image of a scientist appeared on the largest flat pane on the device. "Good to see you. I heard that there was some non-standard move education going on through your services, is this a followup?"

"Actually we're here because I'm not really a pokemon and I need to know if I can use these technic machine things," Gazimon said before anyone could try to hide his nature.

"I've gotten captured as a side effect of a really complicated situation, so if we have some time to spare I'd like to get tested for that too," Shawn added happily, with Serperior chuckling at the joking way he asked while the digital pair merely groaned. The researcher naturally was confused by this statement.

"How about I give you a tour of our current work first?" the local Administrator said while she looked nervously between the trainer and digimon. "That would also give me some time to scan the two of you to see about compatibility," she continued and watched the two, fairly obviously expecting at least one of them to have been joking about their desire.

"I'm afraid that I have other projects that require my attention at this time," the researcher said sadly after checking the time. "Be sure to show them facility 2, I'm excited to hear about their reaction." The device floated away to a pillar near the center of the Box that it easily slotted into before shutting down.

The overall layout of the Box was simply a massive grey cube with a few smaller grey structures rising out of the floor. Some blocky but otherwise well made pieces of playground equipment were located near the largest of these where the Porygon led them first. "This is the housing structure. We have plenty of room for the pokemon who perform the testing for the new TMs, and we even have setups for the occasional researcher," Alpha 45 explained with pride.

"You've been getting permission to bring humans in here?" A-0 asked looking over the massive block. "I'm surprised they have the gear to get here from their lab, I haven't seen any going through our own setup."

"It took a bit of work, but we really do need direct human interaction for the later stages of development. While I can do some prototyping, sometimes I make things that don't remain stable outside the Box so they need to correct me," the Administrator informed the group leading them further along to the smallest of the simple structures. "Over here is the cafeteria," she said opening the door.

Inside was a fairly simple set of tables and benches made of blocky grey material along with a number of bins containing digital food along the back wall. Simplistic dishes and plates were piled on a smaller table at one end, with a small bin next to it with the word "trash" printed on it clearly. "It is fairly basic, but I'm waiting to hear about a better method than just having people deliver real food all the time before I make any further improvements," she continued as they took in the very basic facility politely.

"The other three are the secure testing facilities," the Porygon continued leading them back outside. The remaining buildings were all the same size with large numbers along their fronts. "Currently only one and two are configured for use. I cleared out number three just a short while ago when we finished with its project." She started the group down the path in front of the structures.

"Number one is where we are currently working on recreating Dragon Breath TMs. We are attempting to base the new pattern partially on the existing Flamethrower TM," Alpha 45 told the group moving them past the first of the buildings. "It is actually working really well, but the few remaining examples of the original limited run we're trying to replace obviously did something different. They were each made by Dragon specialty trainers themselves, and those tend to have the matching type. Like with tutoring, a human with a matching type to the move can more easily create a method of teaching it to a pokemon than those without."

"How far are you from a new version?" Shawn asked rather obviously wanting to stop at this site rather than continue with the tour. Serperior too looked with interest at the structure from the trainer's shoulder.

"Really close actually," she replied happily. "Compatibility will be limited for a while after we have a stable release, the test facility will then shift from making sure the move is functional to expanding how many pokemon can actually benefit from it."

"Is the other move you're working on already at that point?" A-0 asked. "The researcher seemed to think it was the more impressive one."

The other Porygon laughed happily and urged them forward to the second building. "Oh no, it is the one currently in the least ready state," she said happy despite giving a negative response. "But it is such a more complex move that our current level of success is wonderful. So far training the move is almost entirely limited to digital testing, but results for some of our pokemon are quite promising!" Unlike before she led them to the door and excitedly flung it open to show them.

The interior was split into a number of chambers, all of them having notable dips along their bottoms to make a number of shallow watertight bowls. Most of the rooms were separated by a variety of barriers that were different degrees of porous, with the few exceptions being split into multiple levels with different styles of drain leading from the upper floor to the lower ones. A few pitching machines and baskets of hard rubber balls were set to the side of the room currently unused.

There were five inhabitants within the building, and of these the Cloyster they met in Box 180 managed to be the least surprising. One chamber with a thin mesh across it had a white cloud of dust moving between the two sides, it noticed the group arriving and assembled itself into a brown reptile with a white bone helmet fused to its face and holding a club of the same material. Another section with a number of electrical cables draped across the glass barrier between its sides contained a yellow and brown rodent with red cheeks that was most of the way melted into a glowing yellow puddle while reaching for one of the cables. At the back of the room a black mist, like shadow given form, condensed into a bipedal fox like mammal with a massive ponytail of red hair tied back with a large bead. Finally in the back left corner a much spikier variant of a Sandshrew stood in the middle of a room that contained scattered piles of sand. A sign suspended from the ceiling declared the location to be the "Acid Armor Testing Chambers".

"The other two buildings are used to work out easily trained moves or recreating now discontinued TMs. The kind of stuff that is already able to be learned by many pokemon with expert training where we can expand compatibility quickly," the Administrator said with pride while the four Troubleshooters looked on in disbelief. "This one is my personal goal, the location where complex and obscure moves are worked on with the intent of giving previously unheard of options to pokemon. Moves that would need extreme circumstances for the average pokemon to even have a chance to learn them." She turned, holding her gaze on Cloyster for a moment before scanning across the other four pokemon moving to join them. "Here I am succeeding in creating a way for normally solid pokemon to learn Acid Armor."

"All of my siblings are insane," A-0 whispered with a hint of terror, with Gazimon nodding in agreement.

"Impressive," Shawn and Serperior said in time with each other looking with great interest in the results. "How'd you manage it?" the trainer asked while the serpent slid off him to look over the testers.

"The move is typically limited to pokemon whose bodies are naturally easily liquefied or even liquid," she replied happy to explain. "So the first major hurdle was to find a way of reproducing the effect with pokemon that lack that quality. Zoroark was particularly critical there."

"Illusions are my kind's specialty," the black and red pokemon said smugly. "The simplest reaction I had was that if what you are made of doesn't work that way, then change that first." His body slid sideways dissolving into wispy shadows before resolidifying a short distance away.

"Making a method of temporarily changing one's base material took a bit of work, but we even managed to make a base for a pattern," Alpha 45 continued. "Fine tuning for materials that were easiest for each pokemon to become started with attempts at directly defining it, but simply working with the metaphysical aspects of their natures worked much better."

"Does magic actually work with Technical Machines?" A-0 asked tiredly. It seemed to have mostly given up on being upset with the situation in favor of just exasperation. "I would think that kind of requirement would just set them back to one use only given the usual consumption of the materials used in the setup." Gazimon turned with a confused expression to the highly technological pokemon apparently serious discussing the possibility of magic.

"Nowhere near as much is needed as the old style Dragon Breath I'm replacing," she replied somewhat insulted while a couple of her testers smothered laughter. "There is some required shape to the pattern to aid in that transformation that is rather tricky to maintain. Our current project is stabilizing that part so that the pokemon will learn to create it on their own before the implanted version decays too much for proper function."

"What she means is currently we're figuring out how to more easily twist our energy into a rather tight pretzel in order to pull this off," the Pikachu said, his body still slightly gooey. "At this point I think we can start someone on using the move with the help of 45 and the rest of us all together, but we're months away from a TM prototype."

"Cloyster, our newest inhabitant, has special experience that is speeding up the process considerably," Alpha 45 said strongly.

"So you did end us still being liquid in the water then?" Serperior asked the Water/Ice type jokingly.

"Guess who's trainer knew what was happening and was sending us there on purpose?" the clam pokemon groaned. "She's kinda upset somebody reported that problem because she couldn't use it to teach her whole team this move first." The black sphere that made up the center of its body rippled slightly. "Naturally somebody told her about this research when she complained."

"Honestly if your trainer waited a bit before asking she might be able to convince someone to allow Charlie 80 to use that move on her team," Shawn told the pokemon neutrally.

"You've met before?" the local Administrator asked looking between the five of them, finally noticing the mismatched eyes of the snake and human members of the team. "Ah, now the compatibility question makes more sense."

"Any news on that front?" Shawn asked deliberately blinking his eyes to show off their changed nature.

"Gazimon is registering as full compatibility in digital environments, like a Porygon or Smeargle," she replied with a sigh. "Outside of such an environment both are far more restricted, with the latter actually incompatible with normal TM function. He seems to be within tolerance for any modern compatibility detection tool, so as long as you aren't going for an out of date TM it should scan him just fine."

"Probably shouldn't use that older Stealth Rock one you have then," A-0 commented. "What about the trainer?"

"He already knows Double Kick," she replied dryly, the least enthused she had been since they entered the Box. "He's compatible with the three current Grass type TMs, numbers 22, 53, and 86."

"Alright, I'll have to see about getting the others then," the trainer replied with some cheer as Serperior chuckled at the result. "What about you Serp? Interested in a liquid defense?"

The plant pokemon took this question as an opportunity to thread himself between the testers in order to look at their bodies. "It does sound and look like a nice way of protecting oneself," he said turning to look at the barriers around the room while sliding back to his trainer. "And the ability to slip into tight spaces does tempt me a touch," he continued with a wide smile showing sharp teeth. "However, from the sounds of things this is not quite ready for distribution just yet."

"Oh, afraid to loosen up?" the Marowak asked with a gravely laugh tapping her club against the ground. Her body dissolved into powder at the action. "It is a wonderful stress relief," she joked as a pile of dust. Serperior huffed, sending a small amount of her flying around and causing her to laugh louder.

"I'm fairly sure Delta 2 will ban us from entering Boxes for at least another month if I let something else happen to one of us," A-0 told the assembled pokemon tiredly. "So while this is an impressive achievement, sister, I have to veto teaching the snake Acid Armor. I don't want my other sister shutting me down because I had to drag him to her in a bucket." The serpent shot a falsely hurt look at the Porygon while moving to once more rest on the trainer's shoulder.

"We are well past the bucket stage," Alpha 45 said and only then realized that her sibling had been joking. "Okay, maybe I'm not on the best of terms with Delta 2, but this is definitely stable enough for us to personally teach it." She then nervously turned to Shawn and Serperior. "I'm just also fairly sure you don't have the two weeks that it currently requires to learn."

"We were mostly here for Gazimon, even getting my own scan done was just a bonus," Shawn said nodding. "Still, let us know when you've got a TM going, we might be interested." He then looked thoughtfully at the digimon. "Hey, Gazi, how would you like to be able to breathe dragon fire?"

"Uh, isn't that risky?" the digimon asked looking between the trainer and the Box Administrator. "I mean, can't I burn myself or something?"

"No, the probably human here has a bit of that to worry about if he finishes learning Blaze Kick, but with TM development that issue is the first thing to take care of," Alpha 45 replied.

"Hence the first thing to happen to me while we developed the basics of Acid Armor was being taken to Ms D-2 as a bucketful of sand," the Sandslash said with a bit of a laugh. "That way we don't need to worry anymore about getting serpents a bit more slippery than they can handle." She continued looking at Serperior with a smile.

"Please don't scare them with jokes," the Administrator interrupted earning a grateful look from the rabbit like monster. "It is a recreation of an outdated TM, that is literally the safest thing we have that isn't already on store shelves."

"Huh. Should we do the whole scan thing outside to make sure it works out there?" Gazimon asked now rather interested.

"Using it on you right now would cut out the possibility of incompatibility with your physical body," she replied. "The worst case scenario is that you won't learn the pattern before it decays, so you'd lose the ability to use it after a while. You can minimize that chance by using it a lot to practice." She turned to Shawn. "I can't get a good scan on his third attack, is it breath related?"

"It is a breath attack that can either paralyze or poison the target," he replied nodding at the digimon. "That's the main reason I suggested we try it, otherwise I'd just go with the few that I already have."

"Okay, I guess we'll see if I can mimic a dragon," Gazimon said with a chuckle. "How tough will this be?"

"We have three test models that each work, I can do some final compatibility scans over in building one. Then even if none of those work I can simply give you the base pattern with some custom modifications," Alpha 45 replied opening the door.

"Be sure to come back when we've got this more stable," Marowak said with a laugh as they exited the Acid Armor facility. They then moved to the first building again, this time stopping to enter.

"Dragon Breath Testing Range" was the title given to this setup according to the sign. The building was split into four segments, each a long open area with a number of blocky targets set at various distances. Three of these had pokemon in them sending blasts of purple flames shooting at the targets, with the fourth currently empty. One was the same species as the dragon like pokemon Gazimon had seen on the television, a second was a large green reptile covered with large solid plates, and the third was a dark blue shark like monster standing on two legs.

"Administrator, what brings you here already?" the last asked looking over the group with interest.

"Nothing too serious, Garchomp. Gazimon here is looking to get a strong attack," she told her tester.

"We just finished letting her show off how she's melting people and wanted to move on to the real reason we came here," the digimon tried joking, looking relieved when the pokemon laughed in response.

"Hmm, you don't look much like a dragon, but that isn't always the clearest of things," the Tyranitar said thoughtfully as she walked up to the group. "Do you evolve into something that looks more like one?"

The rabbit like monster froze for a moment at the question, quickly drawing everyone's attention. "Yeah, at least one of the things I can evolve into is a dragon. Once I knew a Gazimon that managed to digivolve into a Devidramon and the boss's boss decided that was worth having him working directly for them," he told the others looking with some fear at his own claws. "Boss monkey didn't like that she was basically being promoted out of his control, so he threatened the rest of us that he wouldn't bother keeping us around long enough to report it up the chain if we ever managed to evolve."

"That, sounds really bad," the Charizard replied with faint horror. "You do mean he'd kill you, right?" Gazimon simply nodded. "Right, let's see if we can teach you dragon fire to help with jerks like that."

Alpha 45 allowed the three testers to move the digimon towards a table with a number of small devices set on it in a variety of states of assembly, and then turned with horror to the other Troubleshooters. "Where in the world did you find him?" she asked quietly with shock.

"Charlie 13 broke reality and he fell through the hole," Shawn said carefully as they shuffled around to look like they were following. "That's the closest he's come to outright saying he was on a villainous team so far, but he's dropped a lot of hints."

"Honestly I didn't expect it to be that bad," A-0 said hollowly. "Which might just say more about how badly my modifications to make him a pokemon altered other parts of him."

"I think he was one of the nicer members," Serperior said. "The kind that still beats up some small kid's team with a smile before taking all their cash, but tries to pretend that the worse things the others do doesn't really happen." The Porygon did not seem to think this was a description fitting with 'nicer'.

"Alpha 45, is the tester working correctly on these yet?" Garchomp asked looking meaningfully at the Administrator.

"Not yet," she called as her group finished moving over to the table. "That is probably going to be a project for the team outside the Box. Compatibility is widened too much by being in a digital world to get useful readings for performance once the pokemon leaves."

"Well him having a dragon as a future possibility should help some with compatibility," Tyranitar said motioning for her to move alongside them. "How did you say that program worked best again? 'When its inside of you?'"

"When you are the one running it on yourself, that bypasses some self protection setups that natural pokemon have," Alpha 45 told her. "I doubt he can go that far though."

Gazimon looked thoughtful for a moment before opening a black pane in midair. "Shawn isn't the only one of us with side effects from our last job," he said a touch nervously. "How do I do it?"

The group was able to calm down while the Administrator led him through the process and determined that there was enough compatibility for two of the three test models. The best of the small devices was set on the digimon's head and using his pane he started the process.

"Okay, that feels odd," Gazimon said while it worked. "How long does this tak-" The device interrupted him by beeping to show its completion. "Alright, now what?"

Charizard carefully took the device off his head and set it down. "Now we go over to the range and see if it works," the dragon like reptile said leading the way. "Best case scenario it comes naturally. Worst case you need to find where it put the pattern and shove energy into that."

"He has some experience with that I'm afraid. I still use a variant on that method for my own moves," A-0 said with a hint of embarrassment. "We spent a period of time in each other's bodies."

"That explains why he can make panes. It is a move exclusive to DSS Porygon, the other models that I have met in my research can't do it even with some basic training," Alpha 45 replied from near the back of the group. "Likely due to the fact that normal Porygon tend to actually live out in the real world."

"So, let me see. This kinda feels like my attack, only hotter," Gazimon said absentmindedly looking over the targets. He stood widely and took a breath, then exhaled strongly producing a fairly wispy purple flame that struck the closest target solidly. The three testers immediately began to clap. "It worked," he said with wonder. "I can breathe fire."

"You can breathe Dragon fire, there is a difference," Garchomp told the digimon kindly. "Dragon Breath instead of leaving a lasting burn on a foe has a good chance of paralyzing them, and the resistances to it will be different from Fire type moves. That means that few pokemon are going to be truly weak to the flames, but there is only the strength of the Steel type that can resist it or the immunity possessed by Fairy types." The shark pokemon smiled widely. "The one thing it does excel at fighting is Dragon types themselves, so now you have something to threaten them with."

"Dragons hurt other dragons more?" the digimon asked looking at the second closest target to gauge the distance.

"Yes," Serperior said staying a good ways back from the range. "Which means if we run into one you might just end up in charge of fighting it." Gazimon sent another breath of flames out to hit the second target, just barely licking the front of it. "After we get your lungs built up to give some more impressive bursts."

"Well, the next thing to see is if it still works as well when we get back out of the Box," Shawn said clapping the digimon on his back. "Anything else we need to do while we're here?"

"The move looks really stable to me, so I don't have anything else to hold you here doing," Alpha 45 said with a hint of relief.

"I'm kinda excited to see this out there," Gazimon confessed looking at the small discoloration on his two targets.

"I think we're leaving then. Thank you for the help sister, and good luck with your projects," A-0 said nodding to its sibling.

\---

Gazimon did not really feel too different returning to the pokemon world. The light heat now resting in his chest didn't hurt, and he was instantly sure this new ability would stick. His wait for his eyes to clear was calmer than he had managed before now that he was much more used to the experience.

"You were gone a bit longer that I expected," Janice said to them along with a ping sound of much the same meaning from Metang. "LAS decided to go 'help' the dev team a little while ago, so if you wanted to dodge her you succeeded."

"We ended up getting the full tour, including access to Alpha 45's nearly done project," Shawn said walking forward with Serperior.

Gazimon gave a huff, and found that wisps of purple flames emerged with it. "The results seem acceptable to me," he told her, earning a rare smile from the Team Lead.

"That's good, I was a touch worried that you three would need to go back into town to buy another TM and who knows what would happen then," she replied with dry humor. "No complications at all then?"

"My siblings are all insane, but I think you already knew that," A-0 said and then sighed. "Alpha 45 might be contacting you later on about how her pet project is ready for Serperior to try. I'm torn on if I want you to let us know about it, because I'm only imagining the havoc he can cause with Acid Armor and it is already making me regret this."

"Well maybe you should enjoy vacations from interacting with them more- Did you say Acid Armor?" Janice interrupted herself with dry disbelief. "As in the move that lets its user turn into a liquid?" The four of them nodded. "I see," she finished darkly. "Sounds like you had an eventful trip."


	12. 1-0A Digital Growth

\--- Digital Growth ---

Gazimon looked over his current foe and gave a huff, the days he had just spent getting Dragon Breath to the point it was a solid flame paying off as the sword-armed insect flinched backward. Janice smirked, nearly matching Shawn's own serpentine smile, as Metang positioned themselves in front of the other foe, a large brown rabbit monster with puffy very light brown sections on the ends of her ears and limbs. The Troubleshooters encountered the pair of traveling trainers who were having a bit of an argument, and apparently with the idea a double battle with them both on the same side was somehow the way to answer to their issue, during another joint training trip to the area outside the facility.

"This is a double battle between four trainers," Serperior said officiating to the clear confusion of the foes. "Each trainer is allowed one pokemon, but also many use any items held or otherwise. Individual pokemon are removed from the battle by surrender or being ruled unable to continue, and the first team of trainers to have no pokemon still in the battle is the loser. Should the remaining pokemon all be removed from battle at the same time then a tie is declared and the pot is split evenly between both sides." He pointed to a small case filled with coins provided by all four trainers. "Teams will determine how any winnings are split on their own."

"Is this really happening Steve?" the girl opponent asked her maybe-boyfriend.

"Which part Ann? The talking snake, the snake eyed trainer, or the talking rabbit mole?" Steve replied confused.

"I'd love some explanation for that last one," Steve's Scyther said. "'Is it a Fire type or not?' is rather critical to my strategy here."

"He isn't," Shawn happily answered the pokemon. "Pure Dark type." The four opponents looked at him in a combination of confusion and horror.

"Scyther, I don't think we should talk with this trainer around," Ann's Lopunny said nervously.

"Communication is a liability during combat," Metang dully noted.

"Are we all ready?" Serperior asked tiredly. The various combatant looked mildly embarrassed at the statement as they again prepared to fight. "Ready." The four combatants nodded. "Set. Fight."

"Bun, Jump Kick!" Ann shouted. The brown rabbit nodded and rushed forward towards Metang.

"Fury Cutter!" Steve told the insect at the same time.

"Rabbit first," Shawn said lazily as Gazimon spat out a short lived wave of purple flame. Scyther grunted as the blast rolled over her but stumbled as her own attack missed the quickly burrowing digimon.

"Confusion," Janice said dryly, Metang ignoring the incoming kick to flash its eyes at their foe. Lopunny's spinning kick connected just afterward, although the time was enough for the machine like pokemon to spoil the attack to cause more damage to herself than to them.

"Hit him again," Ann told her pokemon while Steve and Scyther looked around anxiously for the fourth combatant. As the martial artist rabbit hopped backwards to prepare for another powerful kick the ground crumbled under her feet sending up a plume of sparking gas. A second confusion attack followed before she could fully recover and as a result her next kick landed roughly on the back of her ally instead of its intended target.

"I was right about the mole part," Steve said angrily. "Scyther, focus on the one we can see. Fury Cutter." The insect pokemon agreed with the sentiment and surged forward to slash at the Steel/Psychic type.

"Erupt," Shawn said coldly while he looked mostly bored by the events. The two opposing trainers looked up briefly and appeared slightly intimidated by the sight. The ground beneath both Lopunny and Scyther broke upwards, the latter hit by a wave of purple flames and the former with the dark furred rabbit monster slashing his claws along her back.

"Low Sweep!" Ann shouted at the same time Steve called out his own pokemon with another "Fury Cutter!" Gazimon hurried to jump over the first kick attack, but took the slice from the blade armed pokemon as a consequence.

"Metal Claw," Janice told her pokemon calmly, and Metang obliged by viciously slashing down the distracted Normal type's back. Having taken a good number of solid hits Lopunny cried out strongly as she fell to the ground limp, and Ann then returned the pokemon to her ball.

Gazimon dug back under the ground quickly in response and seeing her foe reach relative safety Scyther looked over to the still rather fresh Metang. Nervously she looked at the pits in the ground from the Dark type's earlier attacks, and fluttered her wings. "I can't win this alone," she said out loud turning to her trainer and shaking her head.

Serperior notably turned to look straight at Steve who nodded and returned the Bug/Flying pokemon as well. "Looks like we went for the wrong pair," he told Ann who despite losing was smirking at him.

"And I told you we need to work together more. Look, that was a great example..." She started in on a long speech regarding their argument while practically dragging him off.

"Winning is nice," Janice said nodding to Metang and walking over to collect their winnings.

Gazimon emerged from the ground and sighed at the sight of his opponents leaving before the location was repaired. "Is there a quick way to recover from just a little bit of damage?" he asked rubbing over the area where the blade had connected.

"Oran berries are an option for that," Serperior said thoughtfully looking up at the building. "And the digital plant we have should be about ready for harvest now."

"Well while you're checking on that I need to get back to work," Janice told them nodding to Metang. "Thank you for the help, Shawn." She tossed him his share of the prize and started back towards the lab.

\---

The digital Oran plant sat in the sunlight of a conference room with large windows facing the sun, the location selected partially to replace another plant that had overgrown the spot a short time ago and needed to be moved. The artificial bush was now fully grown complete with five large blocky blue berries. "So these are ready then?" Gazimon asked looking at the fruit from a short distance giving a huff of flame while facing away from the plant.

Shawn and Serperior were both resting beside the pot, the former having received an education in Grass type manipulations over the course of the plant's growth. "Yes, and the good news is that the plant itself is solidly in the soil. It won't decay like a normal one when we collect them," the serpent answered, pointing out something to the trainer. "The only thing left is to see if the berries are standard strength, or if they've been weakened to some extent by that modification."

A-0 looked over the plant from the end of the room containing a video phone. "So it is a normal plant otherwise? No issues from being digital in nature?" it asked fidgeting.

"As long as the fire breather here stays away it could live just fine," the snake pokemon answered pointing at the digimon. "I'm honestly quite impressed. As soon as we're cleared to go into Boxes for actual work again we can start with taking these back," he continued giving A-0 a look to make it clear he knew how much the Porygon wanted to get back to working to help its siblings.

"Will it be okay for me to use one, or are we just here because I reminded you of them?" Gazimon asked with a smirk, still happy from his earlier victory.

"We'll be scanning one of these," Shawn said retrieving a round natural Oran berry from his bag "and one of those, with this." He also retrieved the Pokedex from his belt. "Then we might use one or the other depending on how that turns out."

"Both should be an option as well if he needs that level of energy recovery. That way we get a direct comparison," Serperior noted carefully plucking the five berries from the digital plant. The polygonal bush shook slightly, then produced a new set of buds that would open into flowers, and eventually some would become more berries. "Hmm, eight this time. If it holds the same and we get twice as many flowers as berries then we will only get four next time. We might need to make sure it doesn't just degrade over several flowerings."

The snake pokemon set the digital berries down on the conference table in the center of the room, and the trainer added the real berry to the end of the short row and worked his way down to scan each of them. A-0 looked on with interest while the digimon itched at his back waiting. As he finished Shawn held the device out to the Porygon to copy the data before moving it so that Serperior could join him in going over the results.

"Strange, the end result is far closer to the natural version than I anticipated," A-0 commented after a moment.

"It's also closer than the original was," Shawn said looking over to his starter. "How much of that could be from the way we helped it along?"

Serperior turned one of the blocky fruit with a leafy hand as he looked between it and the Pokedex. "A good amount of it, although we might need to take into account some metaphysics too. It is an Oran bush, and I was helping it to grow into a healthy one. That might have further altered it beyond simply making it stable."

"So, which one am I trying here?" Gazimon asked poking at another of the polygonal berries.

"Digital," Shawn and Serperior said together. "We know how much a regular one should restore and can compare the effect from that," they continued smiling as they matched each other for the entire sentence.

"Honestly, that was slightly less creepy than when you two did it before Shawn could understand pokemon," A-0 said with some dismay. "Go ahead Gazimon, let us know how one tastes."

Slightly wary he picked up one of the digital fruit and took a bite. Immediately after he quickly finished off the berry with a wide smile. "Okay, how often do monsters just devour entire bushes of these things?" the digimon asked looking at the others hungrily.

"Probably not the best idea to give you one when you're hungry, but yes that does happen," Serperior answered picking the rest up and putting them away in his trainer's bag. "How's the change?"

"Within the standard variance for an Oran berry," Shawn said looking over the Pokedex. "I think Delta 6's experiment can be called a success. We should at least get Janice to let us contact her and let her know, even if we can't go there and finish the examination."

"Honestly I'm surprised I managed to keep A-0 out as long as I have," the mentioned Team Lead said from the doorway. "Maybe we can get it to take more shorter breaks now so I don't need to do this again anytime soon."

A-0 spun to look at the other human member of the team. "Does this mean we're clear to be back on duty?" it asked hopefully.

Janice looked at the Porygon with calm annoyance. "You still need to calm down about helping out with things," she said dryly. "However, we are good to go back to work now. Delta 2's last worry was about Gazimon's stability, and the work he's been doing with his trainer she's sure that isn't a concern," she continued looking at Shawn. "Metang has the transport to Box 205 ready for you."

\---

Box 205 had changed in the days since their last visit. The ground felt considerably more like dirt, even if it was the same polygonal shapes, and the grass growing in it was far more varied than the non-living decorations that most Porygon Administrators that had such a thing used. Serperior and Shawn immediately stopped the group upon their arrival to go over the many now independent digital plants and how they had been advanced over nearly a week.

"Sibling, Troubleshooters, you're back! I was worried that after the messes I heard you were having to deal with I would end up months away from an answer," Delta 6's sunflower body said happily as she approached from the direction of the garden. The many fairly colorful plants were just barely visible from their arrival location, and even from a distance it was clear that experimentation had continued. "Because of that I've mostly stopped our work on the Oran berry, and instead moved to work on getting status healing berries to work."

"Well we're working again," Shawn said standing up. "No issues for a while so hopefully that rough patch is over and we can stick with working on projects like yours."

"The digital plant has grown well and remained past its first harvest of five berries, although the next one is looking like it might be only four," Serperior said returning to his typical spot laying against his trainer. "We've also tested one of the five and the result is typical for an Oran berry, so we're looking good so far."

"That's wonderful," the Administrator said happily. "Did you bring the others?"

"We have them. As long as you have saved some of the initial berries we started from we should be able to compare to see what changes the growth process caused," A-0 replied pointing its body towards the garden. As it did so Serperior retrieved one of the newly grown digital berries.

"Of course, we can even use the changes I've seen with the natural berries we've been growing here to determine if there are any common differences," she responded motioning for them to follow to the growing plants and sending a flash of leaves up to hide a temporary alteration of the Box's layout that removed most of the distance.

There was now a plentiful variety of plants from the pokemon world growing in the area, which had been expanded greatly and now featured some growing outside of the planters of physical soil. "The latest soil has been a complete success," she continued pointing to the many plants. "Enough that I want to distribute my update to the other Boxes. The ability to at least season with real plants has already improved my food significantly and I want to help our Siblings with this improvement." She moved to a large wooden chest, one made of physical material. "I got Lead Janice to send this to us along with another delivery of soil, to help separate out the results without leaving them in contact with other digital materials." She retrieved a blocky blue berry from the box. "It mainly makes it harder for me to just shift everything around when I'm trying to sort things so I remember why I had them separated from the rest."

Shawn took out the Pokedex and both A-0 and Gazimon produced panes to look at the data, although the latter only did so after getting a look from the Porygon Troubleshooter. "Wow, that's actually more change than I thought," the trainer said before reaching into his bag to take out the physical berry he had on hand. Delta 6 seeing what he was doing went over to two of her current plants and recovered both digital and physical fruit grown inside the Box for them to compare.

"I'll document everything," A-0 said to the group opening more panes, one for each of the Oran berries. "Gazimon, just focus on getting scans and comparing data. We've only started with how this kind of code works so don't worry about understanding what the rest of us are saying, but I'd appreciate if you tried to follow along." The digimon nodded and focused on his pane, drawing a brief look from the local administrator.

"You can easily tell from this which have grown in the digital world and which are from the physical one," Serperior said from the trainer's shoulder. "In fact the complexity of the one we grew is much closer to a normal one than either of the digital ones from here, and there are large gaps where that complexity is unneeded in the physical one grown here." He shifted slightly to look at the fruit themselves rather than the data. "You can almost see it actually. The texture of the ones from the physical world are more detailed and their shapes less uniform. The original sample is the flattest and a solid color, with the new grown one nearly the same although I can see some variance there."

"We have seen that from the ones that we grow," the sunflower shaped pokemon noted. "Although nowhere near that extent. I also didn't realize how simple the shape and skin of the natural ones had been getting in here. Is that going to be a problem?"

"It shouldn't be," Shawn said carefully. "The actual parts that perform the needed actions are unchanged. However, you might want to keep track of the changes to make sure no critical parts of their code alter over time. Take A-0's data from this test and set it aside to compare to with every harvest."

"It appears you have total success with recreating this plant using digital materials, sister," A-0 said happily changing his panes into data storage cubes and setting them aside. "So to build off that success how are you doing with the other varieties?"

"Well, for simplicity's sake I decided to just make a Lum berry. They heal everything so I thought that it would be the most efficient way to deal with status problems," she replied waving them over to a section with tall thin polygonal plants that each held large green digital berries split into three distinct bulges. Most of the plants held only a single fruit, but a couple had a pair of new berries. "So far I've had problems," she continued sadly. "They grow really slowly, the plants aren't taking the permanence treatment at all, and somehow the result always ends up tasting quite sour."

"Oh wow, these aren't doing well at all," Serperior said frowning at the plants. He slipped off Shawn's shoulder and slid up to one of them that had two Lum berries. "It is really short of a whole mess of nutrients. The only reason it made it this far is that the digital soil you have here isn't depleting quite like natural dirt does." He looked around for a moment before finding a single planter containing one of the experimental plants, this one sporting two fully grown berries and one undersized one that was off in color. "This one shows the issue best," he continued pointing out the fruit. "They need a better variety and a lot more care than most standard berries to grow well, and one of those things is keeping really fresh soil. You probably can't manage more than three growths with the same patch without rotating something else into it or using fertilizer."

"Given that it probably won't work for permanent life. The fully grown plant likely takes in too many nutrients to sustain itself," Shawn added looking sadly at the patch.

"I was afraid that was the case," Delta 6 said sighing. "I can actually add more varied nutrients to the digital dirt, but keeping the quantity these were consuming was energy intensive. The complexity goes up quickly, and they are surprisingly ravenous about it."

"Well, those are only the best ones to make, right?" Gazimon said looking over the plants with his pane still open. "So maybe you should start with the simpler ones first?"

"I saw some Pecha, Chesto, and Cheri berries back there," Shawn said thoughtfully at the digimon's idea. "That is poison, sleep, and paralysis. Those three are the most common afflictions, and getting Rawst and Aspear would complete the cures for long term effects."

"So far I mostly have those for seasonings and food purposes," the sunflower Administrator said considering the idea. "However, you are right that going for the all in one cure isn't working for me. They still need more specialized soil than the other plants, but not as extreme in the increase in energy consumption."

"Is this a transfer of power that would have made food normally, or an actual increase in overall consumption?" A-0 asked looking a touch worried. "If it is the latter then distributing to the other Boxes might require approval for the increased usage."

"Ah, yes it is an increase. Minor per plant, but still enough that I've included data on the specific increases I've seen when you grow various real plants in the new soil," Delta 6 said producing another data storage cube. "Here, while I'm thinking of it this is the latest stable version of the soil, the one I want distributed."

"We'll give it to the dev team to look at when we head home," Serperior said moving back towards the plants Shawn had indicated. "Now how about you show us your process for creating these digital plants while we have some time? Pecha is the berry that deals with the most critical of the status ailments, so let's start with that one."

They started by collecting some of the berries grown in the Box and comparing them to examples Shawn had on hand. The differences were much the same as between the physical Oran berries grown in each world. A record of the results was quickly created and set aside for later comparison.

"The first stage of my process is to separate out the various code parts for the base functions," Delta 6 started looking over the digitally grown fruit. "The priority values are the results from eating one and the ability to grow new ones, then the next critical part is the shape of both the berry itself and the plant that grows them, and finally there is the extra data I cannot currently identify." She opened three green panes in front of her separating the code into each. "Now actually forming something out of the full code is simply too energy and processor intense for our hardware, so I have to find where I can cut it down." Several parts highlighted themselves on the screens. "Most of that ends up from the final category, but there are excess portions in the others as well that perform some function for biological versions of the plant."

"Some of the stuff you just marked is in the changes that occurred to the Oran we grew outside of the Box," Serperior noted smugly before looking closer at the code.

"However, some of it is also things that your Oran plants grown here have already removed from themselves," Shawn countered looking over the preliminary results. "We might actually be able to work out what the differences are doing from that comparison."

"I know back in the early days every Alpha went through the process of finding out just how hard it would be to duplicate stuff perfectly," A-0 commented absentmindedly while looking at the proposed cuts. "Some of our results ended up rather risky after we started trying to just remove stuff until it worked."

"Honestly I never directly use the initially created berry," the sunflower replied. "The growth process either fails entirely or re-adds a good portion of this data." She brought up another pane, this one bright yellow. "Here is the base data I used for making the latest seed Oran berry. As you can see it is much more cut down than the final one we scanned today." Shawn and Serperior leaned in to look at the specifics while A-0 turned with interest to look at the plants around them. "I work on the best seed data that I can manufacture myself, and then refine it until I get a successful growth. Then I simply use those resulting berries to grow more of the plants."

"Let me guess, you have needed a lot of help from Grass types?" Serperior asked thoughtfully looking over the various panes of information.

"At first yes, but it has become much easier since then," she confessed. "I think I'm adapting more to being one myself. Is there any way to check for that?" she asked, only to immediately find that Shawn had firsthand knowledge of the topic that proceeded to thoroughly distract the two of them from their prior goal.

A-0 watched amused as the team's remaining Grass type joined in the conversation, and then turned to look at Gazimon. The digimon was looking with wary interest at the various panes left open. "So you guys can just make stuff out of nothing?" Gazimon asked tapping one lightly.

"Out of a lot of energy and quite a bit of effort. It honestly isn't that different from when Serperior makes his leaves and binding vines," A-0 said looking thoughtfully at the rabbit monster. "Make a pane real quick." Gazimon looked over and nodded, creating a single empty black pane. "Put some basic data in it, and follow my instructions." It then went over the basics for creating a data storage cube out of the pane with the digimon, resulting in a small black cube that clattered to the ground. "There, you just made something out of 'nothing' too."

Gazimon picked up the small cube and turned it around to inspect it. "That would work outside of here too, wouldn't it?" he asked getting an affirmative bob from the Porygon. "Alright, while they're busy with that how about showing me what I can do that actually accomplishes something with this?" The pair laughed at the joke and began their own discussion of altered abilities.


	13. 1-0B Legends

\--- Legends ---

"Got a new one, Charlie 16 has run into an issue regarding the species of his latest resident," Janice said while they were going over various pieces of paperwork necessary to keep the Troubleshooter team operational.

"That's one of the multiple trainer Boxes, right?" Gazimon asked puzzling over a small stack of reference guides.

"Yes, the one for Dragon types. So far it has mostly been used by trainers that have found a strong Dragon type they aren't skilled enough to train yet or otherwise can't manage," Shawn said organizing his own stack of papers and setting them on the small digital desk that the team had cobbled together using large but mostly empty data storage cubes when they noticed the room's lack of suitable furniture for the task. The mix of pink, blue, and black boxes made for a strange appearance. "Although a couple are from specialized Dragon trainers that are in the region and need some local help looking after extra members of their team."

"This is apparently related to a new user's first submission," Janice said looking over documents on her terminal. "I don't recognize the name, and the system is still updating the species. He must be really worried to send this request before everything finished processing."

"What are we going to be doing exactly?" A-0 asked tiredly. "Or did my brother simply call for help without being at all specific?"

"He says it is an emergency and he needs an outside opinion now," the Team Lead replied dryly. "Go ahead and see what's got him panicked, we can use a break from this stuff anyway. You'll probably know what the pokemon is before I do, so if I call it means something else came up."

\---

The view the team received upon entering the Box revealed that the Dragon type Administrator had apparently decided on the tough conditions of a high mountain range for his home. They were on a level peak of one of the large harsh mountains, with the particularly large and contorted polygons used to make the terrain resulting in steep drops downward from the location in most directions. They could just make out a number of the inhabitants doing a variety of activities among the sharp shapes.

Directly in front of them was Charlie 16 himself. The Legendary pokemon Latios was the inspiration for his form, which was a streamlined head attached to a long neck that met an equally streamlined body. His ears were somewhat wing shaped, matching the two large wings extending from the rear portion of his back. At the typical location of a creature's legs were another set of wing like structures pointing backwards. His short relatively rounded arms were located at either side, with impressions on his main body where they could fold into to complete the low air resistance shape that greatly resembled a high speed aircraft.

It was quite plain to see that he had managed a very close shape to an actual Latios, as all they needed to do to compare was look slightly to the right where an actual example of the Dragon/Psychic typed Legendary was floating looking quite confused at their polygonal doppelganger.

"Oh good a human that might be able to explain what's happening," the Latios said in a rush shooting forward a short distance. "I don't recognize any of your species, and your eyes are really weird but there's this thing that looks like a Latios and I don't know why."

"Brother, how much have you explained to your newest inhabitant?" A-0 asked strongly while Gazimon scampered backwards at the slight presence of power being produced by the plane like pokemon. Shawn and Serperior were successfully completely ignoring the light pressure.

"He's a real Latios! What am I supposed to do? This was only to make myself look like a proper Dragon," the Administrator said with a similar desperation to his shape's physical counterpart.

"'Brother'? You are both the same kind of pokemon?" the Legend asked looking closer at A-0. "But he looks so much like a Lati, and you don't really."

"We are both Porygon, artificial digital pokemon made by humans," A-0 answered still focusing on its sibling instead of the Legendary Dragon. "My siblings who are in charge of Boxes for specific types have a tendency to shape themselves after Legendary pokemon. Like my brother here appearing as a Latios like yourself as you can see."

Latios looked between the two again, and in doing so noticed Gazimon practically cowering at his presence and sheepishly backed away from the group. "Humans can make new pokemon? I thought that was only stories and legends," the pokemon said nervously.

"Like usual it was something of an accident," Shawn said with a laugh at the confusion on the pokemon's face. "They are actually on the fragile side of things, but have some interesting abilities. Charlie 16 here simply wanted to look like one of your species." The trainer and his starter were inspecting the Legendary closely, taking note of his condition.

"It isn't meant as an insult or anything like that," the Administrator said nervously.

"I guess I don't mind, I'm just not sure what to think of a Latios that isn't one," the new resident replied with confusion. "So, you're in charge of where I'll be staying?"

"Ah, yes. What kind of place are you used to staying?" the polygonal pokemon asked. "Box 116 is mostly mountains because the other Dragons seem to like things tough, but I do have a small forested area in one of the canyons."

The jet like pokemon perked up at this statement. "A forest would be much nicer! Where is it?" the pokemon asked excitedly looking at the area around the mountain.

"You aren't very old, are you?" Serperior asked with a deliberate calm as he shifted to lean more heavily on Shawn's shoulder. "How does a Legendary as young as you end up shoved into storage?" he asked looking concerned for the Latios.

"I- I don't know what you mean," the Eon pokemon said stuttering slightly. "I'm just too strong for my trainer to use where he is right now." He floated back slightly more when Charlie 16 closed to more closely look at the real version of his form.

"I'd give Gazimon here a good chance of taking you one on one, and he's only had about a week of training with us," the serpent countered as Shawn frowned at the Lati.

"What?" Gazimon asked with a bit of a squeak. "He feels like he's pushing down on me even from all the way over there! How could I possibly stand up to that?"

"Latios isn't even at your level," Shawn said confidently. "Not to mention your type advantages. You're immune to his Psychic attacks, and you have both Dark and Dragon typed attacks of your own that are his weakness," the trainer continued. "I'd give you good odds even if he was in the same condition for battle you are, and he isn't."

A-0 and Charlie 16 both started looking at the pokemon with interest as he nervously fidgeted in the air. The Troubleshooter Porygon carefully focusing on the Legend's feathers and wings. "From the data I've found on Legendary pokemon you are showing the signs of being a fairly young Latios. Young enough that you should still be with your parents," A-0 said looking critically while meeting the Latios' eyes.

"You have that kind of data on them? Why?" its brother asked confused while discreetly opening a pane to display the trainer's information.

"Because after seeing what my other siblings have done to mimic their inspiration's abilities I wanted to be forewarned of any new issues," A-0 answered sharply still looking at the Legendary.

Under the gaze of so many people the Dragon deflated and hung in the air embarrassed. "Alright, I am a bit too young to be on my own, but I am old enough to find a trainer," he declared getting a bit of strength back as he finished, only to deflate again under the continued glares. "Well, I found myself a trainer at least! We were doing fine, I was winning battles and everything! He was almost to his first Gym," Latios continued.

"First Gym?" Shawn asked icily cutting him off, both he and his starter had frozen like a snake preparing to strike at the final sentence. "You found a trainer who had not even beaten his first Gym battle yet and decided that was a better idea than staying with your family?"

"They were mad about that too," the young pokemon confessed reluctantly. "It's why I'm here. My parents said that normal pokemon 'don't get the luxury of always getting to stay with their trainers', and that if a pokemon is too much for them right at the moment they get sent away to wait for the trainer to need them." He itched the back of his head. "They insisted that a trainer wasn't ready for a Legendary pokemon until they had at least three badges, so they are paying for me to stay here until my trainer has them or decides that he can't manage that," the Legendary finished sadly. "Then I'll have to go home."

"If the motive is to have a Legendary on their team then I doubt there are many trainers that wouldn't make it to at least three badges," Shawn said far more kindly than his earlier statement. "And if the motive is to be reunited with a friend then a good trainer would make it the entire League." Gazimon looked over at the three badge trainer for a moment at this statement before turning back to the aircraft like pokemon.

"You're sure?" Latios asked without much hope. "We were doing okay, but I was having to fight rather hard against some of the other trainers. A few didn't think I was a real Legendary," he said not meeting their eyes.

The trainer looked at the Legendary pokemon thoughtfully, then walked forward to the edge of the level area so he could look him in the eyes better. "Part of being partners with pokemon is protecting each other. For rare pokemon like yourself this is extremely important," Shawn said seriously. "With how young you are that means your trainer needs to be able to keep you safe from those that would hurt you just for being a Legendary. That's why your parents said he should have those badges, to prove to them that he could keep you safe while you got strong enough to face those threats yourself."

Charlie 16 took in the still rather discouraged look of his newest inhabitant and turned to look at another part of the Box. "How about we go and get you a place to stay while you're waiting for your trainer to get there?" he asked waving an arm and replacing one edge of the flat area with a blocky hole leading to a digital forest. Through the trees the group could just make out the mountain they were standing on at the moment. "You said the forest would be better?"

The Legendary pokemon looked over the portal with some worry. "Um, yes?" he said as the group easily walked through the temporary alteration. He followed after quickly looking around amazed as they arrived among the polygonal trees. "Wow, this blocky place is weird."

Gazimon laughed at the reaction and smiled at the pokemon. "You're the first person I've met in a while that hasn't been used to this stuff. It does get less weird after a while," he told the Legendary somewhat more comfortable with its presence now.

"So what sort of place do you want to have?" the Administrator asked pointing around the area. "The trees are fire proof, mostly because my sister who's doing the most work on plants has only made smaller ones so far." He tapped the trunk of one producing a believably wooden sound. "They still can be broken if you want something like wood, or to see how hard you hit things. I'd prefer if you'd let me know before hand so I can get ready to replace them."

The Legendary blinked slowly at the brief explanation. "I guess I'll keep that in mind. Can you get some kind of nest material? Straw I think humans call it, or maybe even some of the softer stuff they have?" he asked cautiously. "I guess I'd need somewhere out of the rain to keep it. It does rain here doesn't it?"

"Typically only when an inhabitant is practicing Rain Dance," the Administrator said earning a nod from the Legendary and a confused look from Gazimon. "There currently aren't any real plants here, although the sister I mentioned earlier has gotten berries to grow in her Box, so if you want any of those we can grow them." He floated forward towards a near vertical mountainside at the edge of the small forest. "A cave is simple enough to make for now at least." Holding out an arm the Latios shaped Porygon formed a light blue pane and positioned it in front of the wall. After a moment the polygons of the mountainside shifted and multiplied to make a small cavern in the digital rock. "How big do you want it?" he asked turning to look at his new resident.

"Uh, wide enough to do a short loop in," Latios said nervously as the hole in the wall expanded. "Maybe a bit taller than that with the floor raised a bit so water can't pool inside?"

Charlie 16 looked embarrassed as he raised the floor upwards. "You'd think I wouldn't need to be told that every time, but I always seem to forget it." He then started to make a number of rounded shapes colored blue and white and set them in the center. "How about those for bedding? They should be something like 'pillows', although I'm working from what my siblings have told me about those."

Nervously the Legendary hovered into the new chamber and pressed a claw into the created furniture. "It's soft," the aircraft like pokemon said with wonder. "How in the world did you make them?" he asked laying down and rolling a bit in the pile.

"Technically, I mostly was able to make them because we aren't in the world," the Porygon said proudly. "This place is an artificial world that I control. In a kind of way it is a part of me, which is why my family calls people who stay in our worlds our inhabitants. My job is to make sure the ones in my Box are comfortable, and in my case it is set aside specifically for Dragon types."

"You control an entire alternate world?" the Lati asked surprised. "To keep pokemon happy in the place while shaped like something else, doesn't that make you some kind of human made Mew?" he asked confused.

"Why do I keep running into people mistaking my siblings for Legendary pokemon?" A-0 asked. "No, we are digital creatures currently in a digital environment. We were specifically created to make stuff inside of such places." The Troubleshooter Porygon looked to the side slightly. "Although technically I guess I might be able to create stuff like that outside of a Box given enough power."

"Honestly it doesn't seem that normal of a thing to me either," Gazimon said looking over the new location. "You guys don't have the same pressure that he does, but you're still able to basically rewrite reality while you're in here."

"Technically Gazi, you're part DSS Porygon now. I'm actually rather sure you can make pillows just like them now," Serperior said smiling widely. The digimon blinked at the reply, and then looked thoughtfully at his own claws.

"My kind are Legendary pokemon only because we are protectors of a number of places. I think we might have even been made for that job specifically," Latios said looking at the two Porygon with confusion. "And we aren't even that powerful even in those places. At best their current protectors can use some powerful artifacts set in those places. You just made these things out of nothing for me!" he said lifting one of the fluffy constructs, the shape of it moving oddly as the polygons of its surface needed to expand and contract while only bending at their edges.

The two digital pokemon looked at each other nervously. "Being made by humans rather than earlier Legendary pokemon isn't going to help our case much is it?" Charlie 16 asked his sibling who sadly nodded.

"Put like that it is a rather clear comparison, although we are much easier to make. There are already hundreds of us," A-0 noted, causing Latios to squeak in surprise.

"You have hundreds of artificial worlds?" the Legendary asked with wide eyes. "Humans are a lot more powerful than I had thought."

"Hey now, this is mostly technology doing stuff. That's a bit different from me just being able to make things out of nothing," Shawn said jokingly before producing a glowing sword shaped leaf and swinging it around a bit. A second later it shattered and the human sighed from the exertion. "Okay, I need to practice Leaf Blade more."

"How long have you been trying that?" Serperior asked annoyed. "I was expecting you to actually ask me about that kind of thing."

"Yeah, that's not my Leaf Blade. It's kinda yours," the trainer replied blinking deliberately. "Kinda stuck around I guess." The serpent sighed while Latios looked on with confusion.

"I don't think this is going to be as normal as my parents expected it to be," the Dragon/Psychic said shaking his head.

\---

The Troubleshooter team returned to scattered paperwork, most of it from the former makeshift desk which was now just a pile of scattered and cracked blocks. In the middle of the room was a highly excited Legendary Analysis System rapidly talking with Janice, who had a dark scowl on her face. Metang was slowly picking up and sorting the various dropped forms.

"Legendary pokemon is in the system! Has been registered and is actual Legendary instead of strange digital creatures," the LAS argued waving her tendrils a bit hazardously.

"He is inside a Box we operate with the goal of providing a safe and secure space for a trainer's pokemon while they can't take care of them. You missy are already a problem for one Box of that nature that is lucky we discovered your creators before we smashed you. I am not violating the extreme trust placed in us to keep a Legendary pokemon safe just to satisfy your curiosity," Janice replied harshly while standing and walking forward. The digital life form halting her limbs to avoid hitting the Troubleshooter Lead.

"Especially when it seems that it is the Legendary pokemon's parents who are the ones trusting us, and are doing so because he is notably young," A-0 interjected harshly. "Your own trainer is going to be here any day now. Do you want us to inform him you were still problematic after the initial incident?"

The LAS halted in her movements totally at the Porygon's voice and turned to face the returned group, then slowly spun to look around the room. "Negative?" she asked sheepishly, then unprompted started helping Metang clean up what was obviously her mess. "Simply want to complete purpose I was created to complete," she said causing A-0's eyes to widen dramatically and Janice to shoot the Porygon a smug look.

"A fair idea, but something to learn is how to manage situations where you for one reason or another can't do that," Shawn said giving just a hint of coldness to his voice, before laughing. "Honestly, it isn't too far off from why we have a Legendary pokemon in a Box."

"I'm sure that will prove an interesting story," Janice said dryly. "However, the matter at hand is that your trainer is actually here, and the two of you both have caused some problems." She looked over at the other human. "Grant is currently receiving an update on the situation from the legal department," she continued sardonically making the LAS flinch.

"Ouch," Serperior said. "I don't even want to know what that actually means." He slid off his trainer's shoulders to look over the jellyfish like creature. "So you're on your way home soon?" he asked with some interest.

The Jellyfish and Team Lead looked at each other nervously before turning back to the serpent. "Unfortunately Grant and his lab don't seem to have the funding to get him and LAS back to them right now," Janice said with just a hint of despair.

"Pokeball compatibility is not currently present in my form, and adapting a pokeball to properly store me is a costly project," the LAS said embarrassed. "Adapting my form to be compatible has notable risk of damage to secondary systems." She flicked her tail of Analyzer dome creators. "Survival given that level of injury is currently not a likely outcome."

"So they'd need travel arrangements for a large relatively fragile not-pokemon creature to get to their facility?" A-0 asked as the group looked sympathetically towards the digital life form. "I can see how that would be tricky. What's their plan for now?"

"Development staff have proposed that the trainer remains as a backup to Troubleshooter team while the LAS provides use of its unique viewpoint and advanced sensor array to their team," Metang droned out using their translator. "This is of course a perfect idea," they continued sarcastically in a good approximation of Janice's own tone.

"I am wary of the development team. They have many similarly 'perfect' ideas," the LAS said with a great deal of worry.

"You do not need to work for them if you don't want to," Janice said a bit more calmly. "However, it is looking like Grant is going to be spending some time as your backup." She looked Shawn in the eyes and smirked. "I've personally suggested that he spend some time swapped around with one of his pokemon to get used to things. I'm sure Charlie 80 could do it easily enough."

"I also really do not want to be in a human body," the jellyfish like creature said quietly while looking nervously at the Team Lead, causing Serperior to laugh.

"Does he have a big team?" Shawn asked thoughtfully. "Beyond the group of fossils we saw in Box 180."

"He's a two badge trainer who has spent the majority of his time after his League journey working with the lab he's at now," Janice said unamused while the LAS very briefly flashed the number 2, a pair of generic badges, and a large question mark across each of her surface panels. "He's made his name as a fossil hunter, with a couple of Ground types for his personal team. Apparently he's their main field operative and as a result has been training up the group's fossil pokemon for the purpose of evolution."

"Can they afford to lose him for such a time?" Serperior asked looking over the piles of paperwork and scattered cubes. "We need a new desk," he mumbled getting a slightly distracted nod from Gazimon.

"Their contract specifically restricted transporting any devices containing partial or completed Porygon generation code," Janice replied looking at the LAS. "In fact it is a bit more strict than that, as we also have clauses about attempts to monitor other individuals' pokemon for that particular class of Box that the device also violated. Rather extremely." The LAS flinched at the emphasis. "So in addition to their lack of funds to get either of them back, not just her they can't afford the trainer alone either, they also need to make up for the massive breach of our rules."

"The fossil hunter is on restricted access to Box systems, he will only be deployed in the case of combat needs," Metang said refocusing on piling up the data storage blocks. As they started Gazimon tapped A-0 and began a whispered conversation.

"Alright I guess," Shawn said cautiously. "We'll have to see how he stacks up."

A scraping crash then sounded out as a large black desk made of polygons appeared in a relatively clear space. Gazimon staggered heavily and ended up catching himself on the new piece of furniture. "Desks are tiring," he said panting as A-0 avoided the sudden gaze of everyone else in the room. "Also we probably should have tried this idea before the blocks one."

"I think he might end up fitting in," Janice replied to the trainer dryly.


	14. 1-0C Fossil Finder

\--- Fossil Finder ---

"So what makes someone a fossil pokemon anyway?" Gazimon asked in the wake of a rather blunt lecture on pushing himself too hard with an untrained ability. "The brown one looked kinda bony, but the others just had shells."

The LAS perked up immediately at the question related to her team. "Fossil pokemon refers to all pokemon of a species that previously went extinct that now exist as a result of a process that takes fossil remains of their species and revives them into a living creature," she answered clearly with her customary display of a short animation demonstrating what she discussed on her panels. "Current data is inconclusive on if the result is the original creature revived or a new creature of the same species." Her surface changed to show a variety of fossil pokemon. "Additional debate exists on the common Rock type possessed by all current examples. It is not known if the case is that the original species were Rock typed or if the type was added as a consequence of the process."

"Okay, the more I hear about what you guys can do the stranger it gets," the digimon replied moving to help sort the documents now that they had a place to put them. "So I guess that a fossil hunter is somebody who looks for those remains?"

"Correct," Shawn replied setting the chair he had been using previously down in front of the new desk. "They tend to travel to mountain caves or desert areas in search of them. Usually while working for a lab that has the revival devices ready."

"So he's used to travel in fairly harsh conditions at least," A-0 noted. "How far past two Badges do you think he is now?"

"What exactly is that supposed to mean?" Serperior asked eying the Porygon.

"That I think you two could take down a lot of the trainers I see in the League matches as you are now, and going by your Badges isn't enough to tell anything," it replied easily.

"I think we can wait for him to arrive to speculate on his ability," Janice cut in tapping a stack of papers. "How about we focus on our current project instead?"

\---

Grant himself turned up a good time later, after the group had used the newly produced desk to replace the makeshift one and A-0 had added a filing cabinet also sourced from the standard patterns. They were able to find a great many pieces of office furniture among the various things created for the Boxes, and had begun a small debate on other things to add while working. The fossil hunter took one look at the far more crowded room and looked a bit wary of the reaction he would get, which was not unwarranted as the Porygon member of the team shot him a harsh glare as soon as he walked in. That wariness turned into a degree of fear at the sight of Shawn's eyes locking onto his own.

"Trainer Grant," the LAS greeted happily, if less enthusiastically than was normal for her. "You have returned." The jellyfish like digital life form was acting as a makeshift display for a variety of reference documents and images for the group, with two of her Analyzer drones also providing additional surface area. The smaller constructs were doing this rather poorly as the resulting images and text were quite fuzzy and as a result it was only really useful if displaying only the latter at a large scale.

"Yes, LAS, they've finished explaining every last aspect of what I've done wrong and will be doing to fix it," he replied nervously looking at the mostly inhuman faces of the Troubleshooter team. "I'm really sorry about the issues I've caused, and I hope I can make up for them." The fossil hunter took in the variety of monsters present and looked down to his belt. "Maybe I should introduce my team?" At the near synchronized nod from the Troubleshooters he quickly tapped the three pokeballs present there.

The first one out was the large spiky brown fossil pokemon from Box 180, who took one look at where he arrived and moved to be closer to the LAS than any of his other teammates. Next was a large blue salamander like creature that looked over those present with curiosity while moving to protect her trainer. Finally a trio of brown domes with faces appeared extending out of small holes that formed with them in the floor below.

"Dugtrio?" the last pokemon asked while Gazimon looked at them in confusion, earning a sigh from their Quagsire teammate.

"Please don't do the saying your own name thing," she said shifting slightly to try and get everyone else into her field of view at the same time. "It doesn't mean anything to anyone."

"Well, it is a bit confusing," Shawn noted. "For a second I did think I misunderstood him." The pure Ground type looked in shock at the trainer and then turned all three of its heads, or perhaps bodies, to look at themselves.

"It is intended to be something that both humans and pokemon can understand," Kabutops noted apologetically. "I think this is the first time its ever backfired."

"Dug Dig Dig Dug Trio," the pokemon attempted again, once more saying the sounds rather than actual words.

"Shawn, why is it saying 'dig' and 'dug'?" Janice asked dryly looking over the new trainer's team. "Because the reason the Water type gave doesn't really make sense." She tapped her screen, which she revealed to be showing a real time transcript made by Metang.

"I wish to be better understood," they replied directly with a degree of exasperation. "Usually we don't run into humans that understand pokemon." They shifted position on the floor slightly to get a better look at the Troubleshooters, the cracked floor returning to normal as the holes moved. "Also they tend to have normal eyes. What kind of mess did Grant get us into this time?"

"I ended up in Omanyte's body for a while," Kabutops replied looking nervously at the four he had met previously. "Which was one of the less serious things the LAS did with the Manaphy thing while in that Box." A-0 shot him a dark glare at that statement while the LAS moved to avoid the look and altered her panels to match the color of the walls.

"As you are apparently going to be working with us for some time, please be aware that the blocky pokemon who have complete control over the Boxes are in fact Porygon," A-0 said with mechanical calm. "They are also all my siblings, and you will be working to keep them safe from things that have in the past killed them."

"We're going up against pokemon killers?" Quagsire asked turning to her trainer. "That's the kind of problem you landed us in this time?"

"Ah, 'this time'. So problems are a thing for your group then?" Serperior asked smugly. "That actually makes me feel a bit better, after hearing you were only victorious at two Gyms I feared that you had no practical experience."

"Uh, can I get a translation too? Because I'm missing at least half of this and somehow nobody mentioned that talking to pokemon was a requirement," Grant said nervously watching as his team seemed to have taken over the conversation. He paled at the look both Shawn and Serperior gave him.

"You know, that is a great point. My own trainer only used temporary methods for a long time, but simply solving that now could be the better way," Serperior said sliding forward making the three new pokemon tense.

"Janice has even provided a rather simple option to use for it," Shawn said coldly. "How would one of you like to be a human for a bit?" he asked the new pokemon.

Quagsire froze where she stood, while Dugtrio looked at themselves and asked quietly how that would even work. Kabutops on the other hand locked his gaze onto the red eyed trainer and nodded. "That might just be an idea. It would be a great way to get us used to this sort of situation while also showing him why we're here," the fossil pokemon agreed calmly.

"That isn't exactly a solution to the translation issue," Janice commented dryly. "If we just switched Grant and Kabutops, then it will just be Kabutops who can't understand pokemon instead."

"I wouldn't mind too much, after all it would be more to get him used to hearing it," Kabutops said somewhat jokingly. "It will also give me a chance to talk to humans," he suggested a moment later seriously considering the idea.

The second statement had Gazimon shuffling nervously to poke at A-0. "Uh, Shawn doesn't usually joke like that," the digimon said quietly. "That sounds more like him trying to train somebody." The Porygon turned to look at the worried digimon and nodded, with the movement catching Janice's attention.

"Um, I'm sure there are better ways of letting me understand pokemon," Grant said looking nervously at the other trainer nodding along with what his Rock/Water type had said.

"Oh no, there simply is not a better way of giving clear understanding than being one for a bit," Shawn replied blinking deliberately. "I for one learned a great deal from my switch with Serperior."

"Perhaps we should start with something simpler," the Team Lead interjected noticing how seriously the suggestion had been taken by some of those present. "Maybe a battle between the two of you so we can determine if you are ready to face what we deal with?"

The three new pokemon looked at Serperior with a reaction that was mostly terror, Kabutops in particular scuttling backwards and nearly falling down while looking at the powerful Grass type. The snake pokemon smiled at the result and returned to his trainer's shoulder. "Hmm, that isn't the worst idea. Their ability to face our targets is more critical than their trainer understanding social situations," he said to them meeting each of their eyes in turn. "However, I'm not sure that either myself or even Gazimon is really the best way of dealing with that question." He turned to the LAS and looked at her seriously. "So, how about it LAS? Are you up for a demonstration of what a Corruption infestation looks like?"

The digital life form flashed her panels at the questions. "I am unsure," she said slowly with her dome shifting to a grey color. "Combat capabilities have been minimally tried and tested. Have only used control capacity, drone creation, and surface energization." Her tendrils glowed blue for a moment with the first item, then for the second she shook her tail, and finally she sent sparks of electricity down the thin limbs. "Drone overload capability was unused due to perceived risk of injury to pokemon in the Box, and water cannon was unavailable while underwater." Her panes showed an image of her Analyzer domes bursting into either blue drops of water or yellow lines of electricity, then a basic image of herself spitting a strong stream of water.

The Troubleshooters blinked at the response. "Wait, these things can explode?" Gazimon asked moving away from the smaller digital dome. "How strong are they that you didn't want to hit us with them?"

The LAS looked somewhat uneasy at the question. "The effect is sufficient to destroy any nearby drones, but is only partially effective against normal pokemon. Another concern with combat in my current condition is my relative fragility," she replied. "In terms of damage resistance I am around level 12." She tapped at her panels with all four of her thin tendrils. "The screens that make up my main body are very much like reinforced glass."

"How many of these can you currently control?" Shawn asked with some interest poking one of the Analyzers present in the room.

"My limit without an outside power source is currently at ten active drones, with the option to draw energy from a controlled target to sustain the controlling drone. This drain would act as a leaching attack by the drone," the LAS answered with a bit of pride. "This quantity is a major increase from approximately four as was the limit during our conflict."

"Alright, then you should be able to at least mimic the level of infestation we deal with," the human Troubleshooter continued. "It would actually work best if they did not engage you directly and instead had to take out a good number of your drones all at once." He looked over the new team for a moment before locking eyes with Serperior in silent communication.

"Thirty drones would probably be a good total limit if she can manage it," Serperior said thoughtfully. "If they can be used for some kind of attack along with their control ability then it should be good practice for the kind of infestation they will be called in to handle." He turned to look at the digital life form. "Can you manage that? It honestly would be a great help in general for training on that kind of problem."

The LAS paused in her movement and an in depth series of calculations flashed across her panels. "While remaining as combat viable as I currently am the limit on total drones created is 32 without use of self destruct attacks, and 12 with each one being detonated. With additional use of energy beyond that I can manage another 16 drones without expending them or 4 more being used as an attack while retaining enough to survive," she listed out displaying four images showing details of the options along with graphical representations.

"How bad does that sound to you Kabutops?" Quagsire asked while her trainer quickly began to agree with the idea.

"It isn't hundreds of them, but I have no idea how hard they actually hit. Just don't let them get onto you and we should be able to keep them back," the Rock/Water type noted with just a hint of disappointment.

\---

The LAS floated somewhat nervously at one end of the small outdoor area that had became the standard battle location for the Troubleshooter team, with her trainer and his team standing in a rough diamond formation at the other end. Shawn and his team were marking off the area by making lines in the dirt. These split the ground into three sections, one good sized segment containing the trainer and three pokemon, another around the same size between them and the LAS, and finally a small section for her to stay well out of the line of fire.

"Alright, rules are simple. Team Grant cannot directly attack LAS, but can otherwise do whatever they need to in order to destroy the Analyzers," Shawn said loudly as they finished up and moved to the side of the makeshift arena. "The LAS is allowed to create a total of thirty drones, and is permited to use them in any way she wishes. Her victory condition is to have all members of Team Grant incapacitated by mind control and or physical exhaustion."

"We will be monitoring all participants for safety. Should we see things start to go too far we will halt the exercise by whatever means necessary," A-0 continued looking each of the combatants in the eye.

"It must be made perfectly clear that everything short of attacking LAS is permitted here. This is not an example of a regulated battle," Serperior added as he moved to Shawn's shoulder. "This is an attempt to demonstrate and practice combat against the common digital threats that Troubleshooters face when we're called in."

After this statement Grant and his pokemon turned to look at Gazimon. "Hey, I've barely been in this reality for more than a week. Don't look to me for any advice on things," the digimon replied after a moment, causing the serpent and human to laugh.

"Energy level is good and production systems are ready for signal," the LAS said looking over her opponents while flicking her tail. "Trainer Grant, I will not be providing status updates during the exercise," she continued turning her surface to a uniform deep blue.

"Begin," Shawn said suddenly. Imediately the LAS gave a strong wave of her tail, forming ten of her drones in the single motion. Grant and his team on the other hand stumbled slightly at the command, but still prepared to face their new targets.

The Analyzers quickly split to engage each of their foes simultaneously. Quagsire and Dugtrio both had two of the digital creatures moving to attack them, while Kabutops had three moving and attempting to surround him. The fossil pokemon reacted first by quickly slashing two of his three apart while knocking the final dome to the side. Dugtrio sent a small wall of mud into one of their two opponents, successfully destroying it, but retreated underground to avoid the other's attempt to cover one of their bodies. Quagsire fired a strong blast of water to shatter her two targets and quickly turned to see how the others were doing.

As she began to turn Grant gave a shout at the remaining three Analyzer drones moving for him directly. Kabutops hit one of them while he moved to take care of Dugtrio's final foe, leaving Quagsire to charge to the defense of her trainer and tackle another hard enough to shatter it. Seeing that she was down to only two of the drones the LAS generated a second wave of eight more and sent them forward.

Dugtrio emerged from the ground just to the side of the last drone that had gone after them at the same time that Kabutops started to swing to take it out for them. Rather than taking the hit the digital construct suddenly splattered outwards as a small wave of water, soaking the pure Ground type and causing the Rock/Water pokemon to stumble. This small explosion distracted Quagsire enough for the final drone of the first wave, hiding nearly on the other side of her trainer, to jump from its position to her body where it latched on tightly.

The amphibian then swept her tail through her trainer's legs, knocking him to the ground. The LAS flinched at this hit and waved her tendrils in a rather negative manner. The controlled pokemon then ran towards her teammates as they prepared for the next wave of drones.

Kabutops noticed the change in allegiance of the Water/Ground type while Dugtrio was still recovering from the water attack. The fossil pokemon tapped his teammate and pointed them towards the eight approaching domes, then moved to try and slash the one controlling Quagsire. His swipe managed to shatter the Analyzer, but not before its victim slammed a ball of mud into his chest.

Quagsire blinked as she regained full control over her body, then froze for a moment in horror at what she had done while influenced by the digital creature. "Keep moving!" Kabutops shouted at her turning to try and aid their remaining teammate. She responded by quickly noting the locations of the incoming foes and sending a blast of water at the two furthest from her allies.

Dugtrio had attempted to send a wave of earth at the domes, which did destroy two of them but also blocked the rest from their vision. This allowed for one of the new analyzers to jump onto one of their bodies. Immediately a strong rumble of shifting ground extended outward from the pokemon, knocking both the other two pokemon down and halting Grant's own slow recovery. The last three drones of the second wave took this opportunity to take over the three remaining combatants.

"Digital life forms win," A-0 said loudly ending the match. The older Troubleshooter team was looking somewhat dissappointed at Grant's group as the LAS allowed her drones to dissolve into fragments of data. "14 drones destroyed, although one of those was a self destruct."

"Appologies Trainer Grant, Quagsire," the LAS said as he managed to stand up fully. "My control of others using drones is somewhat limited. Instructions provided can be misinterpreted by the pokemon while it is being controlled."

"When you said 'mind control' I had assumed that you meant you would be the one using our bodies," Quagsire said angrily at the jellyfish like creature, then turned her glare on Kabutops. "Knowing that it would still be me doing that stuff would have helped a lot!"

"There's another way to be mind controlled?" the fossil asked sarcastically. "Sorry, I've only had to deal with the one." He shook his head and looked over his team. "Honestly I only ever tried to resist it once before, and I was rather confused on what I wanted then so I thought it might be easier to do with a clear idea of what you were after."

"'Anything' included attacking me, didn't it?" Grant asked a bit wearily.

"Considering I've seen Shawn help with every fight I've seen these guys in?" Gazimon asked in response. "I'm actually a bit surprised that is one of the strange things he does that is actually weird even here."

"In practice most of the things we've been up against don't really know what anything around them is," Serperior said to the group. "They're just wildly trying to continue doing whatever they normally do as software, despite being in a digital world as effectively living creatures. Most of the time that ends up with them damaging or otherwise endangering those around them."

"I am one of the least damaging instances the DSS facility has encountered," the LAS said somewhat sadly as she floated forward to look over her trainer and his team. "With the majority of those who caused less damage simply being cases where the digital creatures were contained nearly instantly."

"We are going to be repeating this," Shawn said thoughtfully. "It works fairly well from what I can see, and the problem of being turned against each other by letting them get ahold of you is actually rather common."

Dugtrio simply looked between the various Troubleshooters. "That is typical of what we're going to to be doing?" they asked with a hint of fear. "A bunch of monsters that just swarm over us?"

"Or worse," Gazimon said a bit uneasily. "Because from what I've seen so far that is a normal sized problem. LAS was able to use Charlie 80 to make hundreds of these." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm pretty sure I saw Serperior take out at least thirty all at the same time once or twice while we were there." This response had all of Grant's team except for Kabutops looking far more worried.

"Given that he's a League tier pokemon that isn't too surprising, but it does mean we should probably start with smaller problems," the fossil pokemon said nodding.

"Sending you in after threats my siblings could handle on their own might work for some practical training in the position," A-0 noted looking over the group. "Along with more tests of this nature that should get you up to speed."

"How common are those compared to stuff as tough as LAS?" Gazimon asked looking over the losing team. "Or even just as strong as those Plasma things?"

"The Corruption we fought in Box 30 was actually at the higher end of the category A-0 mentioned," Shawn clarified. "Alpha 30 and his inhabitants could have taken care of that themselves, although probably with a bit more trouble. It just might have been bad enough that they would have had to make an emergency call for help with it." He took out his Pokedex and tapped on it for a moment. "Threats of that level happen around every one or two months, that is ones we are just barely called in on. Things bad enough for us to be needed from the start are usually twice a year issues, with more on bad years." He looked sadly at A-0. "LAS might not have been that damaging, but she's still in the last category of things that are powerful enough that we need to go up to our limits to stop them. Those are one of a kind things, and we've only had a handful in the whole time I've been here."

"And he started during the first of those we ever had," A-0 told the group. "We should head in for now and start getting things setup for them to help with minor issues."

"We should do this again as soon as they're up for another round," Serperior said. "Probably also spend some time working with the LAS ourselves to get her used to mimicking threats."

"Ask my trainer how long we're expected to be working with you," Quagsire requested with a hint of exasperation.

"Quagsire wants to know if you know how long you will be joining the team?" Gazimon relayed with a hint of amusement walking to stand closer. Grant flinched at the question.

"Ah, well it is going to be some time. The lab is rather interested in what this place is doing and wants to look into a partnership," he deflected. "If we could work something out it might help with making up for the issues I caused." His team did not look impressed by the non-answer.

"Alright, who else wants to try having me switch bodies with him next?" Kabutops asked, receiving a rather thorough response.


	15. 1-0D Aspirations of the Past

\--- Aspirations of the Past ---

"Alpha Zero," the LAS started as her trainer walked off with his team in the wake of an eventful medical checkup in Delta 2's Box.

"A-0," the Porygon corrected harshly as the hallway outside the Troubleshooter Lab emptied for the night.

"Apologies," she quickly replied before pausing for a moment. "I have a question," she started again, but nervously fidgeted for a moment instead of asking. A-0 began to bob in the air impatiently before she continued. "What was the purpose you were created for?" the digital life form questioned obviously nervous about its reaction.

A-0 looked at her quietly for a short time. "I was the test run of the generation system," it answered quietly. "I am dedicated to the protection, safety, and happiness of the Porygon units created by the system after me."

"Created to protect the others?" she questioned shifting slightly to better face the pokemon.

"It is the purpose I have," it replied making clear in its tone to the LAS that she was not getting another answer. The Porygon then floated off towards its own apartment.

"It doesn't like talking about how it was made," Janice said from the doorway where Metang was finishing up. "Which is part of why it doesn't like anyone using its full name either."

"A-0 did not declare the purpose was the one it was created with," the digital jellyfish said still nervous.

"You're going to have to hear that story from A-0," the Lead said somewhat coldly. "Come on, we should get you back to the development lab for the night."

"Will it be possible for my housing to be transferred to my trainer's new location?" the LAS asked.

"We should probably wait until he's human again before trying to get your charging gear setup in an apartment," Janice replied with a sigh.

\---

"Delta 2 was a lot angrier than I thought she'd be," Serperior said somewhat frightened as the team returned to their apartment.

"Yeah, I mean, I expected him to end up switched, but I figured someone would have to convince her first," Shawn added looking over the room to make sure everything was alright.

"Well, LAS did admit she had been threatened before with being the one switched," Gazimon replied moving over to his pile of bedding. "At least Kabutops seemed kinda happy with it," he said unsure if it was actually a good result. The digimon then began thoughtfully looking over his small area of the room.

"You'd better not be thinking about doing more digital creation tonight," Shawn cautioned him while sitting down on Serperior's bed. "That desk was already pushing it for your first day of really trying."

"Yeah, yeah, but I am going to try to practice that skill," the digimon replied happily. "That is at least a good side effect of the mess I'm in."

They continued getting ready to go to sleep quietly, having mostly adapted their nighttime routines to include the rabbit like monster easily enough.

"On the subject of side effects," Serperior said thoughtfully looking at his trainer. "How long has Leaf Blade been working for you?"

"Since I tried the Solar Beam TM," the human member of the team answered unapologetically. "I think that got the parts of Grass type moves I understood working again."

"Maybe we should get another checkup on our condition," Serperior noted. "Switching Grant around might have been more serious than Delta 2 was thinking." The snake pokemon looked worried about what had ended up happening with the fossil hunter, and his trainer nodded with the idea.

"It should be alright," Shawn said calmly. "You're not having any problems right now, and me having a few more moves to work with is helpful in our line of work."

"As the fossil guy learned," Gazimon agreed. "Although hopefully he doesn't end up stuck like you two are."

\---

A human, a Kabutops, a Quagsire, and the three bodies of a Dugtrio made their way into the bare apartment they had been assigned quietly.

"So, I wasn't expecting to go to sleep like this," Kabutops said, Grant's body shifting uneasily as he directed it to the simple bed sitting partially made in one corner of the room. "I mean, it did seem like switching us was just a joke we were taking too far, but I figured even if it did happen I'd be a pokemon again before we left the Box."

"It is really weird to happen at all," Quagsire insisted as she looked around the plain room. "Along with traveling into blocky artificial worlds, fighting things that aren't pokemon and are trying to hit our trainer too, and basically everything that happened today." She turned to glare at her trainer currently inhabiting his fossil pokemon's body. "Which makes this a massive mess you somehow landed us in."

"Okay, hearing you say things without understanding what you are saying is a lot creepier than I thought it would be," the currently human shaped member of the team said looking at the others with unease. The various pokemon flinched at this statement.

"Well, I understand why they did it," Grant said scraping a clawed limb along one of his back spines. "I messed up badly, and from what I've heard the reason that trainer's eyes were Serperior eyes is because something like this happened to him." He held out the limb to inspect it. "Although it is an interesting experience."

"I can imagine," Dugtrio replied bobbing one head, earning a look from Quagsire at using a singular pronoun. "You probably never expected this back when you were just dreaming of being a fossil hunter as a kid," they said in a slightly different tone as another head turned side to side.

The body swapped trainer nervously avoided looking at any of the others. "I doubt Grant really thought about having his job as a kid, Dugtrio," Quagsire argued. "Most people think of themselves winning the League." She looked at the nervous fossil pokemon, and frowned at the reaction. "Right, Grant?" she asked annoyed at his lack of reaction.

"Well, my parents definitely didn't believe that I could even possibly achieve what I really wanted to grow up to be back when I was a kid," he responded somewhat evasively. "So I figured the closest I could get was to train fossil pokemon instead."

"Instead of what, Grant?" the amphibian asked dryly. The rocky pokemon shifted the various spines on his body nervously. "Grant, you cannot be telling me what it sounds like you are telling me."

"Ah, look at that, its getting late. We should probably get some sleep," the current Kabutops dodged.

"Can someone at least try to include me on this?" the original owner of the body asked. "Because you're arguing with our trainer and I'm getting worried about why."

"I actually wish I could right about now," Quagsire said to the human doing her best to pantomime what she was saying with minimal results. "Given I think he's considering keeping your body."

"I wouldn't!" Grant responded turning and scraping his claws on the floor. "Kabutops will get it back as soon as they let us."

"Quagsire," Dugtrio said dully. "I think this is definitely the worst thing to happen to our team."

"Look, just because I wanted to be a fossil pokemon when I grew up doesn't mean this is a good thing to happen," the fossil pokemon argued. "I mean Kabutops doesn't want to be a trainer after all, and I was also more of a fan of Armaldo than his shape."

"If I knew being a trainer was this strange I probably wouldn't have been so interested in it," the currently trainer shaped member of the team said with exasperation at the continuing incomprehensible discussion. "Maybe I should just see if we can all get the talking thing that the snake has."

Quagsire looked between the two switched individuals darkly. Kabutops merely looked confused at this while Grant was frozen at the current human's statement. There was a clicking sound, and they all turned to see Dugtrio's ball rocking slightly as they stored themselves away. "You know, that actually seems like a good way out of this messed up day," the Water/Ground type commented after a moment. "See you tomorrow," she said before returning herself as well.

"But they said I shouldn't try and use Kabutops' ball," the remaining pokemon said quietly to the spheres, then turned to the human in the room.

"Right, guess we both need to figure out how to get to sleep in these then?" Kabutops said nervously while looking at the bed.

\---

"Earlier," Gazimon began to ask a short time later as they started to settle down in their respective beds. "You mentioned that a good trainer would make it to the League for a friend." He paused for a moment at the serious looks the other two gave him. "Why did you say that when you only made it to three Badges?" he finished uneasily looking away.

The other two remained silent for a short time, then sighed in unison. "I started my journey with my best friend, Jack. We both knew an older trainer who had a Serperior of his own, and that pokemon had kids who wanted to be starters. Two young Snivy that we were sure were the strongest starter pokemon anyone could have," Shawn explained somewhat sadly. "So we came up with the idea of getting to the League with just our starters."

"My sister and I were all for this idea back then," Serperior added. "Mom was really strong, and she had beaten some of her trainer's opponents all on her own." He was smiling widely at the memory. "We loved those stories, of her smashing entire teams of pokemon without any help from her teammates. So it was easy for us to think that we could do it all ourselves."

Shawn pointed at a small case setup on a wall. Three small icons were set inside of it, with empty spaces for five more. "We beat the first Gym easily enough, and it just took us a bit of effort to take down the second." The third resembled flames. "Then we ran into the problem I told you about in town, the third Badge challenges we found all required us to have a second pokemon."

"My sister was more open to getting a partner than I was," Serperior confessed. "We were both Servine at that point, but I focused more on training while we searched." He sighed heavily. "She wanted to give up on the idea at that point, so when I did become a Serperior she was even more discouraged with how despite that our progress was still stopped."

"That's when we finally found someone who would give us a chance." The trainer laughed in memory of the event. "It was a trick of course. She smashed us with her fifth Badge team, then did it again when we tried a second time."

"He gave up, didn't he?" Gazimon asked as the story paused for a moment. "Caught someone else to beat her?"

"No," Serperior replied sadly. "He told us he was just quitting outright." The snake pokemon looked Gazimon in the eyes. "I was able to talk with my sister from time to time on the phone after that. She would tell me how disappointed she was in him, and how she wouldn't ever work with him again." The starter and trainer then both started to laugh sadly.

"After he quit, I decided I needed to make it for the both of us," Shawn continued haltingly. "Gazi, never make the mistake of thinking I'm a good trainer." The digimon looked up at the human in confusion. "The Gym Leader was trying to teach the two of us a lesson. One it took me a long time to learn afterward." The trainer sat back on his bed looking at the ceiling. "You can't do things just on your own. She ran a Fire type Gym and I was there thinking I could take down a team that faces people with two more Badges than me with just a Grass type."

"When I finally took down her heaviest, a Magcargo, it felt like the best day of my life." Serperior looked too sad to be talking about the best day of his life. "They are snails made of rock and magma, the kinds of pokemon that can flood cracks with molten rock hot enough to make you catch fire from feet away," the Grass type explained. "She looked so mad when she realized we had just won. I didn't even mind the rather harsh burns on my body at that point."

"We never found a fourth Badge Gym that would even consider us," Shawn continued. "Gym after Gym. Leader after Leader. Nobody would tell us anything other than a trainer needing to prove he could work with another pokemon to go farther."

"My mother was angry with me, but I think she never got around to yelling at me properly because she was too mad at Jack," Serperior added. "She knew that teams matter, and that I was an idiot for risking my life in that Gym battle to win."

"David Grim was the last Gym Leader we tried," the trainer said sitting back up. "He asked if I wanted to face the Champion themselves for my eighth Badge given what it took to get my third." At Gazimon's obvious lack of comprehension he elaborated. "Champions are trainers that win the League tournament, face the Elite Four, and then defeat a previous Champion. Beating one in a fight is the very last and greatest thing you do in a League."

"I take it that was an insult?" the digimon asked still confused.

"He was calling us arrogant beyond belief, and he probably had a point that time," Serperior clarified looking unhappy with the admission.

"We ran into Janice right after that, and working to keep Administrators safe seemed like something worth doing," Shawn clearly lied.

"The first one was bad," Serperior said looking sadly at something that wasn't present in the room. "One of the worst, before we had a way to keep the rogue data from forming inside of the Porygon."

"So you gave up because you found something better to do?" Gazimon asked looking at Shawn harshly expecting to be corrected.

"We gave up around two Gyms before that," the snake pokemon answered before his trainer could. "At that point it was mostly just not knowing what to do next that kept us going from place to place."

The trainer sighed and looked at his starter. "It started out as something to make the time I wasted while trying matter, and I was only to getting the same answer all the time," he said tiredly. "I knew at that point that there wasn't going to be anyone, and all I had left was the knowledge that Trainers help people when they find problems. DSS had a place for me, and by the time the League itself rolled around I didn't regret joining at all."

"We'd helped a lot of pokemon by that point," Serperior said holding his trainer's gaze. "Janice thought it would be alright to watch the tournament to see how things could have gone for us." Gazimon found the tone the serpent used for this statement ominous.

"Jack was there," Shawn said darkly. "Won his placement round before being knocked out in the first, with Serperior's sister still back home pissed off entirely at him for what he'd done." The trainer shook his head. "Turns out he'd left for the next town, caught a bunch of local pokemon, and never said a word to me again." He laughed humorlessly.

"My sister apparently tried to shove a phone into his hand with our number already dialed," Serperior said dully. "First time since we split I spoke with her, and we'd though they were home when it happened. Turns out that was just after, when she refused to keep working with him as a result."

"I don't know why he didn't want me to know," Shawn continued. "I know why nobody else did, it was his decision, his mistake, to make. I had just not learned the lesson properly, he's the one who took it wrong. I know that if he'd just told me about it I would have been fine."

"We know because we asked him if that was what he was doing, and because my sister had been thinking of doing it herself," the serpent added with a quiet anger. "He said no, said he was heading home, and finally said goodbye. Then he didn't even bother saying he changed his mind."

"So in short, you're a bad trainer, and he wasn't a good friend?" Gazimon asked quietly.

"That's about right," the two of them responded sadly in perfect synchronization.

\---

"Lead Janice, is there a way in which I can provide additional assistance to Alpha Zero?" the LAS asked quietly as they neared the corner of the room containing her current bedding. "It has provided assistance to my purpose, despite my being a threat to its own."

"Don't worry so much about that kind of thing," Janice replied tiredly. "Although you really should get used to using 'A-0' rather than the full name." She looked over the digital life form for a moment "A-0 is a bit too driven in my opinion, and I could use another digital creature that isn't going so far as to overwork themselves trying to keep us safe from these things."

"Thinking is hard," the jellyfish like creature stated in the same quiet tone. "Acting in a way beyond programming," she started to clarify, then shook her body and grew louder. "Being able to act beyond programed capability is hard. I did not operate beyond my scanning processes for much of the first two weeks, with the main deviations being to maintain control over all accessible creatures."

"Why did you do that?" Janice asked curiously.

"My program is made to operate on multiple scanner setups. Prior to Kabutops being placed in the Box the same tracking device I was extracted from had been used for a variety of purposes," the LAS responded producing an image of a Kabuto with a band on one of its claws. Then the display showed several handheld items being connected to the band and passed over rocks. "I now suspect that this aspect of my origin program taking control of sensor systems attached to it was the reason that I possess the capacity to control others."

"They would have their own software that you were controlling, and in a digital world we are all something like programs ourselves," Janice speculated looking over the emptied development lab. "Did you come up with that while working with the team here?"

"No, it is from my own analysis of the data provided on past corruption incidents." The artificial creature displayed a number of documents.

"You aren't a corruption-" the Lead began.

"There is no difference of note," the LAS interrupted. "My execution was far more error prone in the first week. It is only the lack of inadvertent harm to the inhabitants that truly makes me different." The screens turned black. "My stability is a function of time and the relatively prepared nature of my source code for being a digital creature. Given proper support it is possible for other examples to also reach my level of stability."

"I'm sorry. I don't think we can try and save others," Janice replied sadly. "It's just too much of a risk."

"Agreed. However, if containment can be developed, or the conversion process refined, then perhaps that risk can be lessened." The digital life form bobbed in the air for a moment thinking of how to accomplish the task, then turned away from the vaguely disappointed look on the human's face. "That is A-0's answer isn't it?" she asked sadly after another few moments of silence. "No purpose when it was created, just one that it found."

"We can try and work on those options, but you'd be better off speaking to the development team," Janice replied ignoring the point about the Porygon in a way that gave the LAS an answer. "See what they say tomorrow. Maybe you can help with that."


	16. 1-0E Darkness

\--- Darkness ---

The Kabutops quickly, if a bit unsteadily, slashed through two approaching Analyzers. Just behind him the human member of the team was staying as mobile as he could to dodge the dome shaped digital constructs, and the Dugtrio had their heads turned in every direction to keep watch while carefully sending bursts of dirt and small stones. Quagsire remained on the opposite side of the small scratched out arena from the other Water type using her own ranged attacks to help destroy the targets.

"Grant!" she called out spotting one dome sparking slightly as it approached the others. The fossil pokemon quickly looked over at the call and sent his own blast of water to shatter the construct before it could detonate.

The two of them quickly looking over towards the LAS as the digital life form created the final wave of six domes. Dugtrio called out "Trio" loudly prompting the other three members of the team to brace, and the rubmling quake of the ground bounced three of the final targets hard enough to harshly crack them. The Kabutops focused on charging to meet the three untouched targets while Quagsire finished off the three broken domes.

"That's it," Shawn called out from the edge where his own Troubleshooter team was watching the repeat of the trial. "Much better. You managed to actually get all of them this time," the trainer said looking nervously at the team. "Which is kinda weird given two of you are in the wrong bodies still, but whatever works I guess?"

"I do not agree on this working," Kabutops panted, still in Grant's human body and obviously quite tired from the event. "Grant really needs to get in better shape, and I kinda don't want to be the one to do it for him."

"This was really strange," Grant said uneasily scratching at his current spiky body. "I mean, I feel totally fine like this and from what everyone is saying that isn't too normal."

"Being a Serperior definitely isn't what I would have called normal," Shawn said cautiously in response and looked at his starter.

"Yeah, that does sound odd," the serpent agreed. "We might want to look into that. Unfortunately this isn't exactly a common thing for anyone to encounter, so there might not be anyone else to compare with."

"I don't know what he said and I really hope that particular problem with this body can be fixed soon," Kabutops told the group obviously trying to get somebody to translate.

"That's an odd way of putting that," the local Gym Leader said walking up to the group. "Although it seems you're in the middle of some odd training as well."

"David," Shawn said turning to the new arrival. "What brings you here?" He turned and pointed to the fossil pokemon. "This is our new Troubleshooter, Grant, and his team of pokemon."

"Well then it's nice to meet you, Grant," David said to the other human holding out his hand.

"Uh, actually I'm Kabutops," the body swapped pokemon comment nervously shaking the hand. "My trainer is in my body right now."

"Who are we introducing the current madness of my team to?" Quagsire asked burying her face in her forelimbs.

"Ah right, sorry Quagsire. This is our local Dark type Gym Leader David Grim," Shawn answered the pokemon earning a tolerant look from said Gym Leader.

"I see," the Leader said looking over the group. "Well then maybe I should head inside. I'm currently using one of your boxes, a Dark type special, and I'm hoping to get a tour of how you do things."

"Wonderful, I'll take you to legal so they can work out just what we can and can't show you," A-0 said smugly floating next to the trainer. "I'm sure you have no problems with that." It then led the now bemused Gym Leader back to the lab.

"Alright guys, pack it up," Shawn said with some disappointment as the pair left earshot. "I doubt we're getting out of keeping a local out with his kind of pull."

\---

"Mr Grim," Janice greeted the Gym Leader a short time later in the Troubleshooter Lab. "Hello, I am Janice Grades, Lead of the Digital Storage Solutions Box Troubleshooting team." She walked up and looked David in the eye. "You are being given a unique opportunity here, as the kind of Box you are currently using is one of our more restrictive with regards to access. Entry into it is quite limited. If he was human, Fossil Hunter Grant here could go over the reasons for those restrictions in detail." She pointed to the swapped trainer, earning a more confused look from the Gym Leader.

"Huh, really going with that joke?" Leader Grim asked with a laugh.

"Joke?" Metang droned with their translator. "The act of switching their bodies did not, in the end, turn out to be simply a joke."

"Troubleshooter A-0 will be in charge of ensuring the security of other customer's pokemon and Troubleshooter Shawn's team will be present for protection in the case of any issues within the Box," Janice continued calmly ignoring the byplay. "I will be on hand here if there are any issues either with your tour or that require our more experienced team's presence."

"Stand on the pad, Gazimon and myself currently do not have pokeballs on hand so we will be traveling directly with you," A-0 said as Shawn returned his starter. "Please excuse the small area, we are not setup for the transfer of large groups at this time."

"Alright, keep my hands and feet inside the edges?" he joked smiling at the other trainer as he shuffled onto the pad.

"It is a good idea," Shawn agreed coolly. "Also be prepared for the short period of loss of sight from the flash." The four of them then vanished from the room as the device engaged.

"Any particular reason you just were as harsh with the local Gym leader as you have been with me?" Grant asked, with Janice getting another transcribed translation courtesy of Metang.

"Gym Leaders are almost always trainers with a given type," she responded calmly resuming her work. "And trainers of a given type tend to be that type themselves."

"Yeah, that's why the Dark type has so few Gym Leaders," Kabutops agreed leaning in to see the translation window on the monitor.

"Exactly the issue," Janice nodded. "Although beyond him being a scoundrel of sorts there's the fact that Shawn is a friend of mine." She turned enough to look at Grant and his team out of one eye. "Leader Grim is rather clear in what exactly he thinks of Shawn like as a trainer. I bet that he isn't here casually."

\---

High in the sky of the area they arrived was a bright blocky sun providing an intense illumination to the entire Box. They had arrived in a clearing that was flanked on one side by a dense forest that was rendered dark by the thick layer of polygonal leaves covering it, and on the other by a large cliff face dotted with caverns of various sizes.

Leader Grim had stumbled slightly at the transition while Shawn let his starter out before they had even regained their sight. Gazimon blinked the lack of vision away and looked at the area thoughtfully considering the resulting shadows. A-0 turned around looking for its sibling and then sighed when it succeeded.

Visually the Porygon was in the rough shape of a black robe with an extremely tight waist, with a tattered series of polygonal spikes instead of any legs or feet and three short claws at the end of each arm. Long two dimensional trails of polygons extended from the base of its body and both shoulders, and the Administrator's head was a similarly flowing mass of white polygons shifting in the slight breeze. Piercing blue eyes looked out from a small number of black polygons at the base of the head, mostly hidden by a red collar of spikes forming the neckline of the robe like body.

"A Darkrai?" A-0 whispered dully. "Please tell me you aren't trying to be accurate to the Legend."

"I know better than to give all of my inhabitants nightmares," the Administrator responded quietly with a touch of anger.

"Shawn, there is a forest here," David said with a hint of shock. "And a mountain, and this is not just a giant virtual box." He turned to look over the others.

"Yes? Charlie 20 is one of the later Administrator Porygon. They have far more capability to generate comfortable environments for the pokemon using the service," the red eyed trainer said as if he was trying to sell something. Serperior smiled widely and leaned a bit heavier on his shoulder. "Most of our currently active multiple trainer Boxes belong to Charlies, so this is actually quite typical of our quality."

"Greetings," the mentioned Porygon said holding out a hand. "You must be the local Dark type expert that has been making use of my Box."

The Gym Leader shook the offered hand while obviously regaining his composure. "Yes, and since I'm so close I wanted to see how they were doing." He looked closely at the digital pokemon in the shape of a Dark typed Legendary.

"Yes of course," the Administrator replied regally. "Krookodile is making a good argument for some sandy places to be added, although most of my inhabitants are not impressed by the currently available options for that material." He looked somewhat annoyed at a patch of yellow polygons on the edge of the mountain. "Shiftry is doing fine in the forested area. The others are enjoying the help with determining where best to have wind variations for use in practicing for battles." It continued pointing towards the nearby woods, then paused for a short time. "And Hydreigon is alive and safe."

David laughed a bit at the clipped final statement. "Come on now. I'm a Dark trainer, I can take the blunt truth," he said smiling at the pokemon.

"Well in that case, I want that anger management problem with more power than she can handle out of my dammed Box," Charlie 20 responded with harsh formality. "She's currently in a region separated from everybody else because she keeps trying to pick fights with weaker pokemon, and she's made that place a wasteland because of a total lack of patience." The Administrator floated forward slightly and focused its blue eyes on the Gym Leader's. "I have a request ready to submit to have her either transferred to a Box with pokemon rough enough to take her attitude, or just restricted from the service entirely."

"Sibling, that is probably a bit too blunt," A-0 said in the wake of the calmly stated rant. "Also we definitely aren't sending a half feral fully evolved Dragon into Charlie 16's Box right now." Turning to the Leader he continued. "For reasons that we cannot discus at this time, as Mr Grim is not signed up for that Box."

"This is worse than Beta 12's story about the Gyarados," the other Porygon replied with the same angry yet level tone. "The one that formalized the dangerous pokemon containment processes, and setup the complaints system. Which is where my report was going to go, but now I have him here to get her out himself."

"Well I guess I can see how that could happen given her species," the Gym Leader confessed with a laugh. "How about we go check up on my little dragon."

"She's bigger than he is, isn't she?" Gazimon asked quietly as the Administrator led them away to the contained area still noticeably annoyed.

"Big enough to ride probably. How can you tell?" Serperior asked with some humor while keeping his voice down.

"Because that tone is the way my old boss talked about his giant killer monsters," was the dry reply from the unamused digimon. "Right before he sent them after whoever he was talking to."

\---

"Hmm, Charlie 20 just sent a hazardous pokemon removal request," Janice said to the new members of the Troubleshooting team while they waited for the others to return.

"That's a thing?" Kabutops asked look up from the reference book he was puzzling over. "I mean, it isn't like we're being taught about how to deal with pokemon causing problems themselves."

"That is because most of the time we can handle that sort of thing without combat," Janice said typing as she read the information attached to the request. "Generally if a pokemon is enough of a health risk to others the Porygon can just setup an area that loops onto itself to trap it until a better solution is found."

"This cannot be done for digital threats?" the LAS asked from next to Metang. Her tone was mostly curious, but there was a hint of edge to it showing she was not entirely pleased with this revelation.

Janice paused in what she was doing and turned to face the digital life form fully. "Three problems with that," she said holding up the same number of fingers. "First, the most common types of corruption spread when left alone. They fragment off shards that start forming new ones. Just putting those into a separate area is only containing the growth until it overwhelms the space." She then nodded at Metang, who triggered an image of a digital area covered in shiny shards to appear on her computer. "Second, digital life forms can more easily learn to manipulate these kinds of alterations. You did after all." The LAS flinched at the reminder. "Which leads into the third problem. When we did try this, and we did try a couple of times, it always ended up just letting the oldest of the corruption grow into a more dangerous form."

"So pokemon are easier to handle?" Grant asked, sighing at the need to have someone else translate for him.

"If all else fails the system still interfaces with their pokeballs to get them in and out again. Customers mostly use the standard hardware at Pokemon Centers for transfers on their end, as this kind of setup is rare," she began turning to the fossil pokemon. "It isn't very effective to try and keep them in their balls long term for our system, actually a bit worse than the standard method at storing them like that, but if the pokemon can't be handled otherwise then we store them like that and contact the trainer." She sighed heavily. "Mostly we just need to send the team in to talk things out. Which is the reason why you are not getting that job, talking to the pokemon of other trainers and groups in that detail is the main place we are restricting your access."

"So because LAS wreaked things in the other digi place we aren't trustworthy?" Quagsire asked harshly, although most of the tone was lost in the translation process.

"No, because your trainer is still part of a third party who has an interest in researching pokemon, we cannot trust that he won't pass information he learns that the owners of those pokemon don't want to spread. There shouldn't be time for him to interrogate anyone while responding to digital problems, while pokemon problems are almost always just interrogations to find the real problem," the Team Lead replied, causing the swapped trainer to once again scratch at his spines in embarrassment.

\---

"Master?" a hissing trio of voices asked at the same time as they crossed into a somewhat cracked and charred rocky valley with no visible exits. The speaker dropped from hovering just above the small area between cliff walls. She was a large three headed dragon with black colored necks and wings along with a purple and blue striped body. Her central head was the largest and focused on the Gym Leader, while the two smaller heads positioned on necks that almost seemed like arms looked towards Shawn and Charlie 20. She remained floating, keeping her short and stubby legs off the ground. "Master! You are here," she continued again using all three mouths at once.

"Hello there girl," her trainer greeted moving up to rub the nearest arm head. "I hear you're being a bit rough on the other pokemon?"

"Hah! 'Rough' is what this weakling calls any real fight," she boasted looking over the rest of the group critically. "They're all tiny little bugs like that little bunny rabbit there."

"Yeah, sounds about right," Gazimon responded nastily. "You're the big bad dragon girl who has the right to wreck everyone else if she wants to, and only boss man can tell her 'no'."

"You want to go rabbit?" the Dark/Dragon asked with all three heads, pulling away from her trainer.

"Hey now," David said a touch more serious than usual. "I know I haven't managed to use you yet, but the League has started to heat up again so we should have some opponents at your level soon."

"Hmph, we'd better," she said looking critically at the digimon and then the other trainer. "Is bunny boy ours, or did the failure finally decide to pick up another weakling?" she asked as she turned to look Serperior in the eyes. The snake pokemon simply calmly met her gaze in response.

"Gazimon is a new member of my team," Shawn answered directly, deliberately blinking his serpentine eyes slowly. "He's doing rather well all things considered." The Grass typed trainer turned to look at the Gym Leader while his starter remained locked in a staring contest with the large hydra pokemon.

"Really now?" David asked slyly. "Maybe you would be willing to finally manage a real fourth Gym battle." His pokemon looked over with some excitement. "How about it, two one on one fights. First one Gaziman here against my little dragon, then another of my typical team against your snake?"

The digital monster looked over at Hydreigon with a mix of worry and thoughtfulness. "What if one of us loses and the other wins?" he asked with only a small shake in his voice.

"Then the two remaining pokemon have a tiebreaker right then, no recovery between the fights," the Leader said with a harsh edge. "Well snake, think you can take her on after fighting another of my best?"

"Perhaps. We might even see the answer," Serperior replied earning a flinch from the Gym Leader at the human speech. "She only needs to get past Gazi first." He then looked away from Hydreigon, quite deliberately breaking eye contact. "Does that mean you are removing her from the Box now, or will we be waiting for Charlie 20 to file that report?"

"Removing me?" she asked harshly glaring at the side of the Grass type's head while breathing in, and the mentioned Administrator coughed loudly in response to the building attack. "Hmph, I don't even want to be in this stupid place," she replied with her outer heads as the center one smothered the flames.

Seeing the near attack by his pokemon David looked to the Darkrai shaped Porygon. "Ah, yes I believe I am going to be taking her out of here with me. Could I get her ball?" he asked holding out his hand, only to jump slightly as the blue and red sphere suddenly dropped into the offered limb. "Right, come'on Hydreigon." The hydra vanished into the sphere as a red light. "Well, how about we see the other two then?" he suggested looking over the others.

\---

The Gym Leader left the Troubleshooter Lab with A-0 as an escort out of the building. Janice looked over the group thoughtfully while continuing to process the removal request completely and fully. "So what did he really want?" she asked getting surprised looks from Grant and his team, but calm ones from Shawn's group.

"Me I think," Gazimon said nervously. "I'm unique here and he seems the type to like that."

"Probably part of the issue, but the main thing was likely that you were on my team," Shawn corrected. "The way the two of us met was at least half my own fault, but that doesn't change the fact that he's been looking for an excuse to thump me in a fight."

"You do know the pokemon you called out is around my level, right?" Serperior asked the digimon with some concern. "I'd have a tough time in a fair fight with her, let alone one right after I have to take out someone else."

"She reminded me of that Devidramon I told you about," the rabbit like digital creature said more calmly, although obviously thinking more about the digital creature than the hydra. "The one that went and found a bigger boss that probably didn't just let him push random digimon around." He shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm pretty sure I can at least survive her for a while. A tired opponent is better than a fresh one, right?"

Shawn looked thoughtful at the comment and nodded. "That could work," he told the digimon, then noticed Janice giving the three of them a questioning look. "Mr Grim has given me the option of facing his Gym for a placement match."

"A what now?" Grant asked before the Lead could respond. "I didn't think we would have time for a League run?"

"You weren't told about them?" Janice questioned in response, getting a shake of the large brown head the trainer currently inhabited. "It is mostly for job qualifications, since you were a traveling trainer I figured you must know about them. You find a Gym that is willing to accept your Badges from an old League as a starting point, and then take the next highest challenge from them. If you succeed you can claim to be the new level, go from two to three, or three to four in Shawn's case." At the look of disbelief on the fossil's face she clarified. "It can't let someone who made it to seven previously go to the current League by getting their eighth that way, you still need all eight from the same year for that."

"Usually they color the edges of the Badges slightly differently every year to make it obvious if one is from an old League," Shawn added casually.

"I've spent months being ridiculed for being only a two Badge trainer," the pokemon replied with disbelief. "I've-" he cut himself off with an angry 'tops' sound. "That's what he meant isn't it?" the fossil hunter asked himself looking upset.

"So Gazimon sounds like he's willing at least," Janice said while Quagsire tried to comfort her trainer by quietly discussing his past experiences with being not quite told about the option. "Are you up for getting it?" she asked with notable sympathy.

"We've been working with others for a while now," Serperior said looking calmly at her. "I think we're ready to admit we had been wrong."

"I've been waiting for him to mess up and give me the option to challenge him," Shawn said despite nodding in agreement with his starter. "Just because he was in the right doesn't mean he ever would have won."

"Right," the team lead said shaking her head. "I'll see if I can head off any issues so I can find time to watch this."

"Would it be possible to hold off on switching me back until after this?" Grant asked looking more collected after speaking with his team member. "Being able to hear the pokemon side of a match sounds interesting."

"Not sure what he said, but I'd kinda like to stay in the human body for the fight," Kabutops said unknowingly echoing his trainer. "See a Gym match from the trainer's perspective?"

"Well, since you both agree on it I guess it shouldn't be a problem," Janice replied to both dryly. "We are switching you back soon though. Teaching a pokemon to read is a longer term project than we have time for right now, and whoever is the human on your team needs to be the one filing most of the paperwork."

"We just spent a whole day having our entire team filling that stuff out," Gazimon complained.

"The four of you can already read," she countered.

"I have forwarded a request to Delta 2 regarding adapting my own method of learning written languages to other pokemon," Metang offered earning the attention of everyone present. "Using the data interface to learn to read was not cheating," they insisted.

"Wait, other pokemon can't read?" A-0 asked from the doorway with genuine confusion. It had a good sized box attached to the bottom of one of its pylons.

"Suddenly I know why you keep thinking that putting up signs would help with problems," Serperior answered jokingly. "What did you find there?"

"Package for Gazimon. You ordered something?" the Porygon questioned allowing the digimon to take the package.

"Dusk Balls," the rabbit monster answered. "I wanted to really join the team," he said to Shawn somewhat strongly.

"I'd say they arrived at the right time then," Shawn nodded thoughtfully. "How many did you get?"

"Five, you were trying to say they didn't always work when you caught yourself," Gazimon answered slitting the tape on the top open with a claw and then carefully removing the green and black spheres. "Also Delta 2 gave me a report on some specific problems I might have with being caught."

"When he what?" Dugtrio asked looking critically at the two pokeballs already set on Shawn's belt. "I see one for Serperior and one for A-0."

"My pokeball is not in this room right now," the digital pokemon corrected. "Humans with good access to their energy can be captured in the right situations. Particularly strong martial artists, like Aura users, can be captured by high end pokeballs. Between the switch with Serperior and his natural aptitude for such things it wasn't that surprising."

The disbelieving looks this statement earned eventually caused Gazimon to laugh. "Does this count as A-0 not knowing a wild pokemon fact?"

The red eyed trainer groaned. "How about we just get on with using one?" he said to change the subject getting a nod from the still laughing digimon. He picked up one of the Dusk Balls and lightly tossed it towards Gazimon, where it lightly impacted and activated.

The ball quickly took the digimon inside and landed on the ground with a clack. It shook once, then with a cracking sound opened again to return a disoriented Gazimon. "Whoa, that was odd," he said looking at the sphere. "So, I was told you can't retry with one of these, but nobody said why." He then poked at the used Dusk Ball knocking it to the side and producing the sound of small stones tumbling over each other.

"There's an inner layer that holds a bit of energy collected from the pokemon during a successful capture. This locks the ball to that pokemon and makes the process to turn them into stored energy easier from then on. It also makes it much harder to break by protecting itself with that energy from then on," Janice answered while Shawn picked up the broken ball. "It isn't that fragile beforehand as far as most kinds of damage are concerned, but the pokemon forcing their way out like that is the fastest way to crack it apart. While it is trying to collect the energy the pokemon can usually shatter it by sending a burst of excess energy into the layer. Better balls have a more robust layer, and the best tactic is to tire a pokemon out first so they don't have the energy to spare."

"They still have to have some excess though, so knocking them unconscious doesn't really work as the ball fails to collect any and spits them back out," Grant added looking at the pokeball warily. "It also isn't just blasting the thing with energy, struggling alone can also physically crack the layer."

"Right, the big key is to just relax," Shawn noted. "Ready to try again?" Gazimon nodded and braced for the next hit.

\---

In the end it took four tries to complete the capture. "So is the transport pad just a really big one of these?" Gazimon asked looking at his new Dusk Ball like it was a puzzle.

"Uh, that does not sound promising," Grant said quietly.

"Most forms of teleportation use that same method, so it isn't that strange overall," Janice said. "Although usually humans don't experience that unless they have a Psychic type trained in traveling that way."

"I guess it felt about the same," Kabutops said uneasily. "Although the revival process just gave me a pokeball from the start, so I can't compare to being caught."

"It is about the same really," Shawn said calmly. "Well, I think my team needs to get ready for the match. A-0, do you think you can get things done the rest of the day without us?"

"Given what you're going to be working on I'm willing to give Gazimon plenty of time to prepare for his fight," the Porygon said floating over to Janice. "All else fails Janice or Metang can help me with anything that isn't a combat problem, and at minimum the fossil hunter's team should be able to survive against a threat long enough to get the three of you."


	17. 1-0F Grim Battle

\--- Grim Battle ---

Shawn arrived at the Gym with two full pokeballs on his belt. The lack of Serperior hanging off the trainer created an unusually serious appearance that had made the people in town who recognized him nervous. Janice was following not far behind with Grant and his team, the fossil hunter still swapped with his Kabutops. A-0 and Metang had remained behind to monitor for any major problems, and the Team Lead had the Pokedex ready to receive any requests for aid that interrupted the event.

"Well, brought a bit of a crowd with you?" David asked from the doorway looking at the group of Troubleshooters, particularly the pokemon walking out in the open. "Looking forward to seeing this?"

"A pokemon battle from the human perspective sounds really interesting, and I've been told that Grant wants to see it from the pokemon side too. So, yes we are," Kabutops answered cheerily. Beside him the fossil pokemon gave an equally cheerful trill of agreement, causing Quagsire to sigh.

"Shawn is a dedicated member of my team. I would not miss this event without good cause," Janice replied formally, while Shawn himself merely smiled and nodded at the Gym Leader.

They moved through the small reception room at the front of the Gym quickly to reach the main arena section, stopping only briefly for Shawn to pay the entry fee. Trainers on a League run would expect to make the money back with the prize for victory, and as a result how many tries they attempted of a given Gym would partially depend on how much, if any, would be recovered by a successful match. The main room of the gym was simply a large concrete stadium with a solid floor and a short wall around the edge separating the rows of seats for the audience from the combatants.

While the others were finding a place to sit Shawn tapped at the floor thoughtfully. In addition to the Troubleshooters a small number of locals and Gym members also filed in to watch. David Grim walked the length of the room calmly with a steady pace, but did not rush to get started. "This is a placement match for Trainer Shawn Reading's fourth Gym Badge. This Badge will not be eligible for the current League, and is intended simply to show the trainer's skill with pokemon," the Leader projected strongly to the audience. "It will consist of two one on one pokemon battles, with the first being between the trainer's newest pokemon, Gazimon, and my own Hydreigon." There was concerned murmuring from the crowd as Shawn nodded in agreement to the specification. "Should there be a tie after both battles are completed the remaining pokemon will face each other in a tiebreaker match with no time given to recover after the initial battles."

"Sounds fine to me," the trainer replied casually taking the Dusk Ball from his belt. "Whenever you're ready."

"Alright then, Hydreigon take the rabbit down," the Gym Leader declared tossing out the hydra pokemon's ball.

"Gazimon," Shawn simply said tossing the digimon's ball.

The two combatants appeared nearly simultaneously. Gazimon quickly took note of the ground and the distance between the various walls, while his opponent looked mainly at the crowd and showed off her body's strength with a flap of her six wings and the start of purple flames in her central mouth. However, rather than smother them or wait for instruction she instead smashed the ball of Dragon fire into the arena just in front of the digimon. The result was a charred patch of ground just in front of the hole Gazimon had disappeared into.

"Serperior doesn't need the floor," Shawn instructed calmly and begun to tap his foot in an obvious pattern.

"Oh? You think that will work?" the hydra pokemon asked sarcastically. "I guess I'll just see how much you need it then." She then lifted in the air a short distance.

"Stay high for now Hydreigon, I want to see what he does," her trainer instructed watching his opponent's actions cautiously. The Dark/Dragon followed this order by staying in the air, but she was obviously mostly doing so to listen for her target.

As she moved over the ground Shawn slightly changed how exactly he was pausing between taps. The dragon listened along with her trainer to the changes searching for the pattern. "Alright, if you can find him take him out quick," David ordered calmly. Hydreigon then slammed down into the ground at a seemingly random point.

The concrete instead shattered outward into small pieces that simply bounced off the pokemon, while the wispy purple flames that followed behind splashed across her scales. She quickly shook the remaining fragments off herself and moved through the slightly sparking mist left behind to see the resulting hole. Catching sight of two smaller branching tunnels she quickly moved to hit further ahead along one of them. This time the blast was even smaller and included the black energy of Gazimon's claws.

The digimon moved as quickly as he could, well aware of how dangerous it was to be in the path of a creature this powerful. He blew a wispy flame of Dragon Breath at her, the attack pitiful but widespread enough to block her sight for a moment allowing him to disappear back underground as she attempted to clamp her left head's jaws around him.

"Oh? Think you're a dragon yourself do you?" her right head said while her central one moved to the hole. "Let's see how you handle real fire." her left head then began to inhale while her center head let loose a long burst of purple flames down the tunnel.

"Compartmentalize," Shawn said still using a calm and unconcerned tone, drawing the attention of Hydreigon's left head.

"Stay mobile Hydreigon, they're planning something," the Gym leader called out looking critically at the arena. The hydra pokemon shifted sideways at this command just in time to avoid another underground chamber blasting outward with a Dragon Breath attack. A sparking mist lingered for a moment until her wings sent it off to the sides of the arena as she angrily scanned for evidence of her opponent.

\---

"I'd hate to be up against either of them," Grant said as the hydra slammed into the ground again, this time coated in a thin layer of purple energy that charred the rocky material as she hit. "Gazimon's is doing that land mine thing that I wouldn't react well to, and even if I did then we'd have Serperior to face afterward."

Quagsire flinched at Gazimon scrambling out of the resulting hole keeping just barely ahead of the Dark/Dragon. "Who is about as scary as this crazy dragon we're just sitting around watching," she said nervously shifting on the bench. "Do pokemon usually watch other pokemon fighting?"

"It is even worse underground," Dugtrio noted as Gazimon managed to barely dodge a blast of flame underground. "He's not using Dig normally there, it's close but he's somehow opening side tunnels and chambers at the same time. I kinda want to see if he can show me how to do that," they continued quietly to avoid being overheard by the combatants.

"I've seen people with their pokemon out during my own matches before," Grant answered his Water/Ground type. "I think I can spot a couple here actually." He pointed a claw at the seats across from them.

"Hold still you little worm!" Hydreigon roared loudly while sending out waves of purple energy that cracked the floor and collapsed a number of tunnels. Connected to one of these was another large chamber, which burst outward far enough that the flames entirely missed the hydra, leaving only a slowly dissipating cloud.

"I don't think I've seen that kind of cloud from Dragon fire before," Quagsire noted with the same quiet tone as her teammate.

\---

Gazimon scampered out of the latest set of tunnels he had created in a rush. The latest attack had struck him a couple of times with crumbling bits of concrete, and he already had a few small patches of charred fur from near misses of the larger pokemon's breath. Despite the injury he had to smirk a bit at the small scorch marks on his opponent, and how she was slightly slowing down as time passed.

Hydreigon on the other hand was only getting madder at the rabbit monster. Her trainer's words were becoming more common and more forceful as he tried to direct her to focus on planning out a way of guaranteeing that her attacks actually connected with the smaller creature. It was becoming quite clear she did not really care about that at this point, as Gazimon was quite obviously weak enough for her to defeat with a single good hit if he would just stay still.

"He's trying to paralyze you," David noted scowling slightly at his pokemon as she somewhat stiffly flapped her wings to move closer to the digimon. "Using lots of little Dragon Breath attacks to slow you down." The Gym leader turned to look at his challenger.

Shawn was still simply tapping his foot calmly at the other end of the arena. "Keep it up a bit longer Gazi," he instructed in the same tone he had used the entire match for the relatively rare cases where he spoke at all. The digimon nodded quickly before once more vanishing beneath the surface of the increasingly destroyed floor.

The Dark/Dragon splashed the top of the new hole with Dragon fire, hovering above a bit more unsteadily then before.

\---

"I don't like not understanding pokemon," Kabutops said quietly watching both the match in progress, and the rest of his team discussing the fight.

"I have been getting rather used to it myself," Janice replied, calmly agreeing as another blast emerged from the ground under Hydreigon. "Most of the issues we directly deal with day to day end up having somebody talk to the pokemon in the Boxes."

"At least you aren't supposed to understand," the temporary human said after the hydra pokemon gave a long annoyed rumble that the two of them could clearly tell was a statement. "Going from being one of them to this is nothing like I thought it would be."

"From when you were dealing with the switching in the Box?" she asked frowning at Gazimon emerging again a bit too close. The digimon ended up hit by Hydreigon's right head, but recovered from the tumble before a strong attack could follow up.

"Actually I was more thinking about what it would be like to be a trainer myself," Kabutops sighed. "Humans made me from a rock that used to be another of my species long ago. With a start like that I've always thought that humans could do anything."

"We're not that impressive," Janice argued, getting an incredulous look from Grant's entire team.

"You work for a company with over two hundred artificial worlds, that has currently switched my body with my trainer's, and who works with a guy who seems like he was turned into a human so his brother could have a trainer," the temporary human replied sarcastically. "I only exist because of this kind of thing." He emphasized by tapping his actual body on the head, getting an annoyed look from its current inhabitant.

"I have good information that they only grew up together," she responded somewhat jokingly while nodding at the still apparently unconcerned red eyed trainer. "I'm afraid that I'm simply used to pokemon who can tell me that exact same origin, and Shawn hasn't exactly been the most careful person when it comes to the strange things our job can cause. We've been joking about him getting stuck somehow for a long time."

The sound of the large dragon pokemon crashing briefly to the ground drew the group's attention back to the arena.

\---

Gazimon panted slightly as he took the opportunity given by her crash to look at his foe. He frowned at the result for a moment, noting that Hydreigon seemed to be listing rather heavily as she rose back into the air despite the relatively minor visible damage. Breathing in deep he decided to give a bit better justification for her condition. This time the Dragon Breath attack he produced was a solid wave of flame prompting a slightly pained sound from his opponent.

"You dare! You dare to hold back on me!" all three heads of Hydreigon roared in the face of the attack, six eyes glowing ominously. "I'll rip you to shreds!" She then surged forward in a rage, smashing into the floor just behind the now fleeing digimon. The ground began to crumble before her as she rabidly attacked her opponent with clamping jaws filled with flames.

Gazimon simply fled from the result of his full powered attack as best he could, not bothering to burrow under the floor and risk slowing at all. The mad rage of the hydra pokemon caused small fragments of concrete and licks of purple flame to hit the digimon, but at the cost of reducing her movement to simple straight lines that he could actually better avoid than her previous actions. As he fled he made sure to lead her along paths that would intersect with the final three explosive chambers he had left in the ground. The first two were all but ignored as she blasted through them forcefully, with the first lost in her own attacks and the second only slightly lifting her as she breached it.

However, by the third her rushing path had slowed enough for the full blast to hit her hard enough to toss her body a short distance. The Dark/Dragon pokemon landed heavily, and lay for a moment panting herself. "I'll break, your bones," she said laboriously as she attempted to lift herself off the ground with her wings and outer heads. This simply resulted in her crashing back to the ground again a moment later.

Gazimon stood up a short distance forward of her, his body covered in small cuts and charred patches of fur. The digimon nervously watched his opponent while wobbling slightly to keep upright. He hopped back as a head snapped at him tiredly, and braced himself for more fighting.

David Grim looked over the battlefield as he took out Hydreigon's pokeball again. The floor of the arena had been utterly devastated, changed to a cratered mess of blackened concrete with notable piles of gravel and trenches where tunnels had been collapsed. Sparkling mist still hung over a couple of places, and he only now took the time to really look at this constant feature of the battle as he returned his pokemon. "Poison gas?" he asked eyeing the challengers.

"Of course," Shawn said nodding to Gazimon and offering the Dusk Ball, all while still tapping at the ground for another moment. The digimon looked between the two humans before also nodding and allowing himself to be returned to the sphere.

"You weren't doing anything with the tapping, were you?" the Gym Leader asked with a bit of a smirk.

"I think I was distracting you," Shawn answered putting away Gazimon's ball and grabbing Serperior's.

"How about a type disadvantage next?" David asked letting out his own second pokemon. "Houndoom, Grass type."

The large horned black canine appeared on the far end at the same time as Serperior emerged in front of Shawn. She took note of the devastation around her with a touch of unease before firing a blast of fire at the serpent.

Serperior simply moved behind a small ridge in the broken floor with a calm rippling of his body that matched the near non-reaction his trainer was showing. The flames crashed into the concrete, but very few managed to get close to the Grass type. Two more such attacks followed soon after, both also casually avoided. "Close the distance, Fire Fang," the Gym leader instructed in the face of the damaged terrain giving so much cover to his opponent.

Houndoom took a moment to examine the ground in front of her, then charged forward with fire building in her jaws. Her feet adeptly crossed the pits and loose gravel, her speed increasing slightly as she prepared to smash into her target while also clamping flaming teeth around him.

Then Serperior meaningfully raised his head in a long undulation, and with the movement vines burst from the ground to entangle around the Dark/Fire type's legs. Houndoom fell hard clacking her jaws together against the broken floor smothering the fire inside them. She was sent skidding to a stop alongside the snake pokemon, who lashed out with one short arm and a flash of green in a movement too fast for most present to make out. Houndoom gave a yipe of pain, and the ground along either side of her body was cut deeply by the rapid blade strike. After a moment, just long enough for the audience to see what had happened, Serperior's tail hit the canine just below her throat, and lifted her off the ground with a motion that moved his entire body in position to slam her down onto her back with a harsh crack of the concrete below the pokemon splintering from the impact.

David watched his pokemon for a moment as Serperior moved a short distance away to get ready to follow up the overwhelming attack, then shook his head and returned her to her ball. Looking between his opponents he sighed. "Let me guess what plan A was," he started, prompting the other trainer to let Gazimon out to hear the conversation. "Your new pokemon does what damage he can to Hydreigon before he gets taken out using that poison trick."

"Preferably while also hiding the fact that she had been poisoned at all during the match," Shawn clarified nodding at the digimon.

"Of course, and then Serperior takes down my other pokemon as quickly as possible to ensure he's ready to finish the fight with Hydreigon," the Gym Leader continued.

"Pretty much," Gazimon answered. "I really wasn't expecting to beat her. At the end there I was more worried about you figuring out I hadn't actually hit her enough for how tired she was." He rubbed at a charred patch of fur. "Also didn't expect to piss her off that much by using a full powered attack."

The Gym Leader nodded, then started to laugh. "Alright then. Glad to see you've figured it out," he happily said to Shawn, prompting a slow blink from the trainer. David then took out a Badge and looked at it. "Looks like you've successfully earned your fourth Gym Badge," he said tossing the small metal symbol to Shawn.

The trainer caught the Badge with an inhumanly fast movement, then looked it over critically. "Thank you for the opportunity," Shawn said stiffly as Serperior shifted onto his shoulder. "Was there anything else?" he asked starting to walk towards the exit. In the stands Janice started the rest of the Troubleshooters on their way out.

"No, that seems to be the match you were after," the Leader laughed waving them off.

\---

"Well, I'm not a fan of him seeming to know exactly what you were after," Janice admitted as they returned to the Troubleshooter Lab. "But I will admit that seemed to be a fair match for your skill level."

"Gym Leaders rarely get to have rivals," Shawn responded overly calmly turning the Badge over. Serperior was off getting the case from their apartment while Gazimon looked over his fur by his desk.

"What did you have them do to me in the 'Pokemon Center' place?" the digimon asked rubbing at the charred patches. "I feel a lot better, and after that thrashing she gave me that seems a bit quick."

"Direct energy restoration," Janice supplied. "It requires the pokemon to have a pokeball, and uses a specialized machine to just provide replacement energy to recover you if you are tired or minorly injured from battling."

"From what I've heard it isn't the best way to recover, but it is the quickest," Grant noted. "Your body doesn't have the time to fully rebuild itself during the process, but it is less stress on your trainer to keep you a bit better fed the next couple of days."

"I like it a bit better," Quagsire noted, getting a nod of agreement from Dugtrio. "Less time spent sore after a fight, even if you aren't actually up to par for another couple of hours."

"We actually do have the equipment for it here as well," Janice continued after reading the translation. "All of the Boxes require the pokemon to be transferred along with their balls, and it is a simple way to deal with any injuries." She then looked thoughtfully at Shawn. "Actually, the only requirement I know of is having a pokeball. So we might be able to use it on you for medical work too."

"Which is one reason medical companies are quietly looking into a pokeball that is able to capture regular humans," Serperior said conspiratorially as he entered. "That way they too can simply put the compressed people into a slot for a few minutes to fix any smaller issues." He then handed the Badge case to Shawn, who put their prize into the fourth slot. The newest symbol fit well into the location, but the outer edge was clearly a darker color than the other three.

"Took a few years," Shawn said simply as he replaced the clear cover.

"Yeah," Serperior agreed looking over the case. "I think the wait was good though," he continued turning to look at Gazimon. "It let us find someone who fit with our style." The digimon looked up from his attempts to clean his fur with a surprised smile.

"Yep, massive destruction on minimal instruction," Shawn agreed getting a much less impressed look from the rabbit monster.


	18. 2-00 Minor Issues

Act 2, Team Upload  
\--- Minor Issues ---

"Right, did you two have fun?" the Chancey shaped Porygon asked somewhat sarcastically of the switched trainer and fossil pokemon. Their team was back in Box 201 to have Grant and Kabutops returned to their own bodies, with A-0 present as well to handle the transfer back out again.

"I don't want to ever not be able to speak with pokemon again?" Kabutops asked hopefully. "Humanity isn't too bad, but not understanding people while they talk is."

"I feel totally fine like this, and have adapted really quickly," Grant said uneasily. "Which I think might actually be a problem."

The medical Administrator looked over him for a moment. "Show me a bit of gymnastics," she requested seriously. The current fossil pokemon quickly moved his body around in a variety of ways, somewhat obviously moving some of the parts of the body simply because he could. "Um, alright that is actually a bit much there." She thoughtfully looked him over. "Right, I'm switching you two back now. I want to get a better look at this. You might end up with a bit of delay on understanding pokemon while we work that one out."

Both of them flinched at the warning. "You think it might be something that happened during the switch?" Quagsire asked worried.

"It is the first thing I want to check," Delta 2 replied. "I have your full scans from before to compare with, and I should see anything like that if it is still there after we switch them back."

"Kabutops is not as comfortable," Dugtrio noted. "Any issue is going to be one sided."

"Entirely possible," the medic replied leading the switched pair to specific spots. "Which is why I'm a bit less concerned with putting him back." She then opened a pair of panes, one white the other pink. "Hold still for a little bit, I want to do this carefully." A few minutes then passed somewhat tensely as she worked before the two flashed with a pink glow. "Right, there we go. First off, Kabutops, can you look at this for me and tell me what you see?" She floated a small white sign from one wall in front of the fossil pokemon, who was already testing his body now that he was back in it.

"'If you can read this then you can read'," the restored fossil pokemon read from the text on the flat polygon. "Huh? Wait a second!"

"Metang had an excellent point, and as your team's second in command this alteration seems necessary," the Porygon replied earning an annoyed huff from Quagsire. "If you wish to receive the upgrade as well, Quagsire, we have plenty of time," she added sweetly while looking over at the amphibian.

"So, is it normal to suddenly know exactly what always had felt off when you go back to your normal body?" Grant asked with a bit of horror looking at his normal set of limbs. "Because among other things, right now I really miss my tail."

Delta 2 froze entirely at the statement. "No, it most certainly is not normal. However, it is also a sentiment that I fully understand." Her own short tail waggled for a moment, causing the rest of Grant's team to look over at A-0's example of a typical Porygon rather critically. "We've seen that particular description of symptoms a couple of times among my siblings, and a few pokemon in the Boxes have noted issues before their evolutions along that line."

"But not in a human?" the trainer asked worried.

"Data not available. The only human I regularly interact with is Shawn, and as of right now he's technically a shape-shifted Serperior while his starter is in his old body," she answered. "I'll have to do some research, see if there is a precedent." She closed the two current panes she held and opened a new pink one. "Your are sure this is the same way you felt before, just with added context?"

"Yes, I'm sure," he said nervously. "The tail thing is the big one. Now that I don't have one again I can say for sure that I've been missing one for a while."

Delta 2 rubbed her face for a moment before going back to the data. "Right, I'm adding in the comprehension for good. It looks like the only long term issue is context, and we can't do anything about that without more research." She looked with annoyance at Grant. "For the record, turning you into a Kabutops is not an option on the table."

"I'd still prefer Armaldo actually. Being a Water type is alright, but his body is too thin," the trainer replied absently. "But you're right, we shouldn't be going after that until we know more."

"I don't think that's what she meant, Grant," Kabutops responded looking at the various labels on the equipment in the room. "Now, with that out of the way, what exactly do you mean by 'second in command'?"

"Right, we started out our Troubleshooter team with Janice and A-0. They both were before my time, but you can probably tell my sibling is the number 2 for the group, right behind her," the Administrator Porygon noted nodding at the mentioned Troubleshooter. "Shawn and Serperior were next, and if you've been around them at all you've probably seen how well they work together."

"And how they can train a pokemon to devastate Gym arenas," Dugtrio noted idly from their corner of the room. "I also am fine with the fossil being second in command of our group. That way Quagsire doesn't have responsibilities to distract her from fixing problems."

"Grant is first in line, right?" the amphibian asked exasperated. "Because I oppose the possibility that it goes me then Kabutops."

"I'm not writing him off that much yet," the Administrator said clearly joking. "This was my plan from the start, to use the switch of bodies to work out how to do the speech changes that Shawn and Serperior have safer." She turned to look over each of them. "Whoever was most willing to try being human was the one who would end up interacting with them more, and as a result would be best for helping out with that task."

"Oh thank everything, you're a sensible one," Quagsire said with a sigh of relief. "I was starting to get worried everyone here was some kind of crazy."

"Turning us into humans so we can speak like them isn't crazy?" Dugtrio asked, then looked thoughtfully at the fossil pokemon. "Actually that doesn't sound as strange as I had thought it would."

"I was definitely more excited about it before actually being in his body," Kabutops complained lightly. "It is much better to be back in my own skin."

"Maybe my body is just a really poor quality human?" Grant suggested. "I mean, we're two for two on finding it a bit underwhelming."

A-0 sighed loudly to enter the conversation. "Grant, I can assure you that your body is quite average when it comes to humanity." It then floated over to its sister. "Delta 2, please look into the situation carefully. His statements also resemble my own dislike of being outside the standard shape."

The other Porygon flinched at the statement. "Right, you are all good to go. I'll keep you posted."

\---

"Everyone back to themselves?" Janice asked as they returned to the physical world.

"Yeah," Grant said failing to keep disappointment out of his voice.

"I can read now," Kabutops said watching the human to see if she understood.

"Alright, I'll let you look over the paperwork we have on file for you then to make sure its accurate," she answered the fossil pokemon. "Grant, I do not think I want to know what that tone means." She then sighed. "Right, with that out the way we just need to wait for some corruption to test your skill against an actual problem."

"There isn't much skill needed for the level of threat we're hoping to send them after," A-0 said looking at the group. "An 'actual problem' would be the kind of thing I'd have Shawn's team tag along to make sure is dealt with."

"If Shawn's team is the example of the skill level you want from us we need to get a lot better really quick," Quagsire complained.

"I think we can at least deal with normal problems, right?" Grant asked looking at Janice.

"We've had only a single instance of these things that was around as strong as I am before," Serperior said darkly. "It ended with a dead Administrator, and we barely won, but it is incredably rare."

"The main threats are 'only' as strong as a typical trained pokemon," Shawn added in a similar tone. "The issue is what they do if they act on their own. There has only been a handful of permanent injuries from them, but given what you've seen our medical facility is capable of doing with pokemon I think you have some idea of how much would need to be altered to even cause that much."

"Changes is different from injuries right?" Kabutops asked. "Because that seems to be the only way what happened to the Box I was in stays out of that count."

"Yes," Janice replied strongly. "Changes are the kinds of things that also happen at pokemon ranches and daycare facilities. Injuries are when something causes long term issues that impair a pokemon." She tapped a key on her station. "The ones he's talking about are mostly missing limbs." The image showed a pokemon with a rough patch of polygonal material where a limb should have been. "The most common kinds try and turn pokemon into more of themselves, because the most common kinds are made from computer viruses, and some have the directive of entering a system and then making the programs inside into new sources of the virus."

"Advertisement based ones are the worst," A-0 said, somehow managing to convey enough disgust with the concept to make Grant's entire team shiver. "They infest without care for their target and spend the whole time trying to convince you to buy some thing." The Porygon looked darkly at the transfer device. "We have successfully shut down three different organizations that have produced such things," it said with malice.

"The issue with thinking of the size of the problems is more what they can become than anything," Serperior added obviously trying to change topic from what had angered the digital pokemon. "A few inanimate shards of corruption can quickly spawn mobile versions that escape casual containment. The more mobile ones then can go from nothing to that monster that we barely beat in a single step."

"Well, not just one step. From what I've been seeing in the reports I think they follow the digimon evolution stages," Gazimon said getting the attention of everyone present. "You guys had already mentioned that it kinda fit the levels, and I've been checking the attempts at containment." Janice raised an eyebrow at the specification. "When the corruption creatures evolve they go straight from being nearly useless in combat, like a Baby or In Training digimon, to being much more able to fight. The notable ones start off able to fight some, and then get quite a bit stronger after they evolve. Always in that same pattern."

"Gazi, the one Serperior mentioned went straight from something like you to a bit stronger than him," Shawn said challenging the digimon.

"Exactly," Gazimon readily agreed. "That's how it works for us, each new stage is a massive boost. That is why I freaked out so much with how training was making me stronger, what I'm used to is suddenly changing into something that can overwhelm what you used to be. The thing you fought went from a Rookie like me to a Champion like Serperior."

"Not exactly helping us with the threat level concerns," Kabutops said while looking nervously between the various experienced Troubleshooters. "Although it does explain why dealing with these problems quickly is a concern. Pokemon don't normally become notably stronger just by evolving."

"That is the main issue we actually respond to when it comes to corruption," Shawn replied. "We don't typically need to deal with anything below Gazimon's 'Rookie' level, and those tend to happen when circumstances have let a more typical program have the time or situation to evolve. Sometimes a really bad virus becomes something that dangerous from the start, but usually things that start that bad also cause problems for other storage facilities first so we have an idea that they're coming."

"Like a few item theft programs that have been written to steal things out of storage," Serperior noted nodding. "They tend to get stuck trying to steal digital rocks and things, but also tend to trap any pokemon they find. Not the biggest threat on their own, but they don't know how to be careful with what they have."

"Then when they get something they can't get out of the Box and tend to just start hitting things," Janice continued bringing up a listing. "We see lots of things, most small enough that the inhabitants of the Boxes just use them as a way to practice their skills while helping to keep each other safe." A beeping sound then rang out from her console, and after a moment checking the cause Janice nodded to Metang, who activated the communication system. "Troubleshooters, what's the problem Beta 40?"

"We can actually talk to you now without you being here? That's much better," a tough feminine voice said with the hint of mechanical tone common to Porygon. "I saw the posting saying to let you know about minor events to do some training?" she continued confirming the situation.

"Yes, we have a new combat team joining who need to get some practice against safer corruption before we send them against critical issues," the Lead answered bringing up information on the Administrator's Box. "I take it you have some now?"

"Yep, arrived and contained after a transfer like usual," the Porygon replied with a rough laugh. "I've been sending requests for the site I deal with to split their device from their main network so we don't get half the things on their email attachments showing up looking for a fight, or at least to add some antivirus to their transport equipment. Got a small swarm of Adware corruption, a bit of a nasty group so I'm not sure you're ready in the time I'm willing to give them."

"Grant, prep your team for transport now," Janice commanded obviously unhappy with the added context. "A-0, are you calm enough to go after those, or should I send Shawn?"

The Porygon bobbed in the air for a moment with visible anger. "Send him, they won't learn anything if I smash all of them myself."

\---

They arrived moments later in a massive off white colored area with a number of cube shaped buildings rising from the ground, and a sky that was a simple gradient of light blue. Right next to them was a massive yellow and purple six legged spider pokemon made out of polygons.

"Good, you were quick about it," she said on seeing that their vision had returned in the same voice they had just spoken with. Beta 40 looked over the group quickly, in a way that was clearly judging their combat ability. "Huh, how is Shawn the toughest of you guys?"

"An interesting question, but I'm just here to make sure things go well," the trainer dodged the question while looking over the large somewhat circular platform they had arrived on. Nearby was a stack of packages, cardboard crates with a variety of large symbols along their sides. "What is this project?" he asked looking at the Galvantula shaped Administrator dubiously.

"That," she spat causing Grant and his pokemon to flinch as they made their way closer to the pile. "That is the reason my venerable contract might be over," the Porygon said not sounding too unhappy about the result. "In addition to their constant influxes of spam email derived corruption, which management apparently is fine with as long as we handle it, they have now started trying to use my Box as a warehouse."

"What," Shawn said flatly. "We're part of DSS, if they want to store items they can probably get a deal on a new setup just for having a Box."

"And I'm guessing you won't take kindly to skipping out on doing that instead?" Kabutops asked slotting into the lead position of his group.

"That is probably what will finally get management to look at what is happening in my Box. Come'on, we can talk and walk at the same time, I want that adware gone," Beta 40 said turning and starting off towards a short yellow colored cube. "Right, there are basically three problems with it." She waved one of her arms towards the stack. "First off, the stuff can get damaged. It is basically like putting it into a closet that also holds pokemon for you, and I don't think that is better than simply leaving it as energy and data in a standard storage system." The Admin then pointed at the building they were moving towards. "Second, there are possibly some data storage drives in that stuff. I don't know if you're aware, but bringing that kind of thing in can make corruption on its own."

"Yeah, yeah, Grant messed up. We get it," Quagsire complained, getting a slightly angry look from the Administrator. "You weren't driving the point in, were you?" she then asked embarrassed.

"I wasn't, although it does explain some things. Here it is the least of the problems, as by now we're used to things they bring in spawning some of it." As she said this the group reached the structure. Beta 40 then tapped on the closest wall for a moment. "Right, third problem, we aren't setup for any long term storage and don't have rules in place for what happens to things stored in here. Most of the contracts we have, including mine, have a section on the risks someone runs with losing items that are kept with the pokemon as they are sent here."

Shawn groaned loudly and looked back at the still visible stack. "Which means we might have a legal mess sitting there if any of it is stuff that they are supposed to keep confidential. Standard item procedure when someone loses the contract or access to the Box is to find any physical things that can be confirmed to be theirs and have them send someone to pick it up here," he said looking at the Porygon sympathetically.

"Is that what happened with LAS?" Grant asked nervously watching the wall Beta 40 had tapped slowly lower into the floor.

"It's what happened to the tracking band she used to be," Kabutops said looking between the red eyed trainer and giant spider. "Just to be clear, this is a 'start fighting immediately' kind of situation, right?"

The wall finished lowering, revealing a pit into the ground. At the base of the hole was a small field of crystal shards, their surfaces displaying broken up text from what were clearly a limited variety of advertisements. Milling about and attempting to climb the vertical walls was a mess of oddly shaped digital creatures made of those same polygons. There were three clearly different types, one for some kind of pokemon beauty treatment, a second with a sound element that the creatures were endlessly saying, and a third for an antivirus program of dubious utility.

"Beta 40, why is this the first I'm hearing about this issue?" Shawn asked dangerously. "Because right now I'm finding myself having to do A-0's job of being angry at this for it."

"I can handle them even in these numbers. That's what this body is for, one good Discharge on a contained group and it is done," she responded looking with contempt at the small creatures. "I've filed complaint after complaint about their transfer practices. I had thought that one of those would end up on your plate."

"Right, Grant, your team is taking these things out. Be careful, and be through. I'll be discussing the bigger problem with Beta 40 for a bit," the experienced Troubleshooter told the new team.

Quagsire started by firing a blast of water at the group of vocal creatures from the edge. Like the Analyzer domes these took a bit of the attack, but still shattered easily. Dugtrio simply caused polygonal ground to fall from the nearby wall onto the grouping at the base of it trying to make their way up, earning a glare from the Administrator as she spoke with Shawn. Kabutops also simply attacked from the ledge, choosing to fire at the other side of the area compared to his amphibian teammate.

Grant watched nervously, and when it became clear his team was not waiting for instruction simply looked around uneasily as they worked. "Maybe I should look into becoming an Armaldo," he mumbled feeling rather useless.

"Glad to see they know to stay at range," the Porygon said after a moment of looking over the group. "Wish that one knew that the wall was better at keeping them down when its vertical," she continued referring to Dugtrio specifically.

"Any idea why the company didn't just make their own storage server on site?" Shawn asked watching the pokemon systematically deal with the threat.

"They have one," she complained harshly. "There is just some new group of hackers going around causing some big scare. Management obviously knows about it considering their first reaction was to tell me that options were being considered." She shook her head and zapped an adware creature that had started to climb the fallen rocks. "The issue is they seem to be moving an entire existing system here, and trying to train their pokemon in how to manage getting stuff in and out."

"Well, I'm sure they'll figure something out," the trainer said following two notably larger life forms that seemed to be actively dodging the attacks. "Problem," he commented pointing at them. One was large resembling a mix of the vocal and antivirus versions, while the other was a mix of the latter and the beauty advertisements.

"Mixed with each other," the Porygon noted calmly. "Stronger overall, but with far more errors."

The first was hit by a strong stream by Kabutops that cracked its body, then a rapid followup by Quagsire as she noticed the first had not been enough. The second leapt forward once with clear skill, the previous uncoordinated movement vanishing as it made a break for the group. The sudden change from the relatively inept movements of the smaller corruption gave a moment of pause to Grant's team.

A green flash sliced through it as it jumped up the pile of stones, and the two resulting halves shattered on the wall just below the group. Shawn's arm remained outstretched over the pit holding nothing, while his red serpentine eyes looked over the group. "That is the difference between a simple, unevolved corruption, and one that's been around long enough to grow," he said coldly, then nodded at Beta 40. The Porygon flashed, sending a wave of sparkling electricity across the pit destroying all of the remaining corruption.

"Did the human just do the slice thing?" Quagsire asked deathly quiet.

"It was smart enough to hide how it was moving," Kabutops said looking at the pit with unease.

"Don't give it that look," Beta 40 said calmly. "The things in that pit had only one thing they'd do to other creatures, try to make them like themselves. Those two were what happens when one of them tries to eat another." She shook her head and hopped down into the chamber to inspect it more closely. "I should have been wary as soon as we saw it was for antivirus software. Those tend to be better programmed than the others, which means smarter overall." She zapped a section of the outer wall, causing a shard that had blended in with the coloration to shatter. "I'll do a sweep to make sure everything got caught properly."

"Right, let's head back," Shawn said motioning them.

"Wait, no, I want a better explanation here," Quagsire said somewhat louder. "You just used Leaf Blade to cut that thing in half."

"This was Serperior's body," the trainer replied calmly. "And you're overestimating how strong that creature was. Mine is a lot weaker than his, and slower too."

"Not by enough for me to be sure of my chances against you now," Kabutops stated calmly turning to his teammate. "Quagsire, that's just what happens when you get switched like that. Given what our trainer thinks of going back I'm half expecting Grant to still be able to use Slash." The pokemon then all turned to their trainer slightly worried, while he simply walked alongside them looking thoughtful.

"Other than apparently help fight, what do you do for the team?" Grant asked Shawn. "I feel like I was useless there, and I know these aren't about to effectively Slash anything." He waved his hands with some annoyance.

"Identifying threats. Your job there was to watch for anything wrong, and let your team know," the other trainer criticized. "Which means I now know what to focus you on, so I hope you're ready to read the past incident reports."

"Do you have any general tips for what to look for?" the fossil hunter asked a bit more upbeat.

"Size, then complexity, and finally intelligence, in that order," Beta 40 answered. "Bigger corruption are more resilient and dangerous in general, so always focus on those first. After that look for ones with complicated bodies and unique abilities, as those tend to be more advanced. Intelligence is the most dangerous feature, but corruption are typically so error prone that actually spotting it is difficult, so don't waste time searching that could be spent going after the other two."

"Mostly because if it is smart enough for that to be the biggest issue you will definitely have the time to figure it out," Shawn said, then slashed again behind them. "Like knowing that being able to make sounds doesn't mean you should make sounds." The creature was slightly smaller than the other two hybrid adware, with its polygonal surface shifting to match the ground around it. It also had jumped back just in time to avoid the strike.

It hissed at the group and shook, sending small fragments sliding off its surface as it discarded the stealth coating. These stuck into the ground and glittered ominously. Beta 40 did not give it time to do anything more, sending a massive bolt of electricity at it resulting in a loud crack as it shattered.

"Sorry," she told the group. "I was sure I'd gotten all of them." She sighed sadly. "We better do a full sweep."

\---

"So, it turns out that combining visually complex beauty advertisements with overly enthusiastic demo versions of voice analysis software results in invisible and rather sneaky killer cats," Shawn said tiredly when they finally returned to the physical world. "Also, they need a lot more practice before I won't be such a major increase in combat capacity."

"Should I have Gazimon and LAS work on a catalog of results from various source programs?" Janice asked checking on the group.

"The dev team already has one, apparently Alpha 30 is working with them on working out the specifics," the digimon dryly said in response.

"Have them get a copy we can show Grant," Shawn responded stepping off the pad. "The work on attacking Analyzers definitely helped prepare them, but they need more info on what corruption can do before I'd feel confident with sending them alone after a bigger threat."

"How bad was it?" Janice asked seriously. "Beta 40 being so callous to an attack does not fill me with confidence."

"There were three different kinds of the 'adware' in her pit trap," Kabutops contributed as his team took a position at one end of the room. "She also said she had changed her body specifically to more easily fight them off."

"As soon as you can get all of the Porygon to send copies of any complaints to us. She's apparently been filing them for a while without saying anything because she could handle them," Shawn said with a hint of anger. "While you're at it see what you can find about the latest news around hacking incidents. Apparently one of them spooked the company using her Box into trying something stupid, and we should know how valid their fears are."

"First is already being done," A-0 said not looking much calmer than before they left. "What exactly do you mean by 'something stupid'? My sister already said one thing that I find to fit that category, but I'm guessing that they aren't being careless about what they connect to us out of fear someone will hack them."

"Stacks of storage crates that they apparently wanted out of their own storage system," Grant told the Porygon. "Which sounds odd to me, our system back at the research center wasn't even connected to any network. We just used it to help manage storage space."

"I think it's safe to discount them from knowing what is alright to hook up to what," Serperior commented. "However, any threat making one of our clients panic about their own storage is important to verify."

"On that front it has been a bad month, I've seen three warning notices so far. No real details in the general releases yet, and I'm guessing we are once again too different from normal storage systems for them to be an immediate threat to us," Janice replied easily. "Digital world storage being safer might be why they decided to mess with her."

"Sit and wait for answers on a problem that probably ends up taking all the dev team's time," Shawn complained. "Right, let's just focus on what we can do to get these guys ready. Gazi, think you could work with LAS on that listing? If they have new security problems to deal with the dev team probably won't have the extra time."

"Sure," the digimon responded thoughtfully looking at the rest of the group. "Maybe make a project of it?" he suggests with a savage grin. This produced worried looks on Grant's team, that shifted to outright fearful as Shawn and Serperior joined their teammate.


	19. 2-01 Warehousing

\--- Warehousing ---

Shawn's apartment had changed quite a bit since Gazimon's arrival. The week old addition of the Dark Gym's badge was a fairly small example, but all three of them took pride in its presence. The largest change was that furniture had been shifted to accommodate the third teammate. Gazimon's area was expanded slightly by moving some items closer to the walls, and had filled with items made of simple black polygons. The digimon had created them himself to better suit his needs and practice that new skill. Another addition was a small growth lamp that sat over a digital Pecha plant that was developing nicely. The board of tasks and lists now had items written in Gazimon's scrawl, adding to Shawn's simple lettering and the tight text Serperior's small arms produced.

In the midst of this altered room the three inhabitants scrambled to get ready while a small alarm set on one wall beeped loudly in a pattern of two long tones then a pause. "What is the exact level of panic for the emergency alarms again?" Gazimon asked as they started out the door.

"Level 2 means it is contained enough that we will have time to get a briefing on what is going down," Shawn responding wearing clothes from the previous day and double checking his bag of supplies. "We should still be quick, it could take a turn for the worse fast."

"If it was level 3 we'd have a bit more time to get ready," the mostly awake Serperior said leading the group. "That just means that whatever the Administrator had to deal with left behind a mess they need help fixing." The trio went down the stairwell rather than take the elevator to go more quickly. "Level 1 is when there is a big problem and we need to be running to the lab fast as we can."

They found Grant arriving at the lab alongside A-0. The other trainer looked tired but also ready to use the three pokeballs containing his team. The pokemon was obviously leading him, as its apartment was located fairly close to the fossil hunter's new living arrangement. "... probably not going to be you going in," A-0 was saying to the drowsy trainer. "But we should still have everyone on hand just in case."

Inside Janice and Metang were both actively working. The Steel/Psychic pokemon was unusually at the controls for the transfer device rapidly going through menus and code. Their Lead looked wide awake as she quickly read through reports and made notes on a pad of paper, but Shawn's eyes quickly locked onto the small blue colored spray bottle siting empty on her desk.

"Those aren't for human use you know," he said even as he followed Serperior and A-0 onto the pad in preparation for transport.

"I think we are all in the business of blurring the line between human and pokemon," she said with just a hint of tiredness. "Hold tight for a moment, this mess is complicated." Grant took the opportunity to let his team out. "Right at 4:30 this morning Bulk Item Server #8 experienced an unusual event. Functionality did not seem to change, but power usage went up 12% despite memory usage dropping 14%."

All of the long time members of the team visibly flinched at the numbers, with A-0 letting out an angry series of beeps. "Is that what it sounds like?" Shawn asked darkly. "Because I don't think most of our alert systems are setup to get messages from digital worlds other than the Boxes."

"They are not, which is why the first error reports at 4:32 and 4:34 did not wake me up with a priority alert," Janice continued. "Instead it was the unauthorized entry report at 4:36 that did. Around four minutes later whoever got in locked down all communication with the server, and then they exited at 4:45." She looked over at the clock on her display, reading 5:31am. "That is around the time I started to have an idea of what had happened."

"I thought we didn't store items in digital worlds. What exactly are we talking about here?" Gazimon asked calmly maneuvering to fit on the device.

"Whenever we convert the base systems that are used to create a Box into a functional one there is always the same change in resource use once it becomes a digital world," Serperior supplied. "12% increased power use, 14% decreased memory use. Something, or from the sounds of things someone, has just made one of our larger item storage systems into a digital world. Then apparently went inside of it, presumably to steal the contents."

"This incident report arrived from the server at 5:00," Janice replied opening a file. "Specifically from inside of the server's new digital world. Like all of the reports and documents we have gotten since the change it appears to have been filled out by someone who has never done one before, but is reading all of our documentation on how to do so." She turned to Shawn. "Your team is being sent in to determine just what has happened on the inside and to try an confirm this report. Primary objective is to determine if any remaining stock can be removed, and to check the security of the site to see if we need to focus on doing so. Secondary is to find any evidence of what the infiltrators did while inside, and to determine just who is inside now."

"Rules of engagement?" A-0 asked in a coldly mechanical tone.

"Protect yourselves if needed, but keep in mind whoever sent this report was willing to break the specific documentation standards enough to ask for Troubleshooter help," Janice replied a bit more softly while zooming in on a part of the report.

"Connection stability confirmed," Metang rang out. "Ready to transport to nonstandard digital world."

"Keep safe and good luck," Janice told the main team. "Metang, get over here so we can make sure communications are working."

\---

"New entry! Internal transfer system utilized. System shows Troubleshooter Lab team on mission," a mechanical voice with a hint of sparking said while their eyes cleared from the transfer.

"Troubleshooter team profiles match arrivals," a duller mechanical voice said next from slightly farther away.

"Troubleshooters?" "Assistance!" "Aid!" a number of high pitched machine voices then added happily from the other side of them.

They had arrived in a massive warehouse that extended a long way behind them, the location itself was still primitive in nature but not quite as blocky as the polygons of a Box. In front of them was the end of the facility in a form that mimicked a loading dock. Directly around the group four spherical metal creatures with small holes across their surface that seemed to contain retracted spikes. In front of each of the eight visible docks were boxy cone shaped creatures with four short legs observing them. Floating around somewhat scattered, but mostly behind them, were two armed robotic claws with a single eye at the front of their short cylindrical body forming a joint between their two arms.

"Arrivals confirm your designations," the sphere directly in front of them spoke with the first voice they had heard.

"Shawn Reading DSS Troubleshooter," Shawn introduced himself. "Here with Porygon A-0, Troubleshooter Serperior, and Troubleshooter Gazimon." The various digital life forms all relaxed notably at the mention of A-0's shortened name.

"Confirmed," the same creature said with notable relief. "I am Bulk Item Server Guardian 8-0A. Your prompt response is appreciated."

"Bulk Item Server Guardian 8-08," the one to their left introduced itself with a similar voice. "We were worried that the invaders would try infiltration again while using better falsified credentials. Porygon A-0 has their name preferences referenced only in some of the documents, and those we have seen are ones that we are mostly sure they would not access and understand."

"Bulk Item Server Shipper 8-04," the boxy cone closest to them said with the duller tone from their arrival, with what appeared to be a segmented rolling door had the number '4' written on the slats behind it. "Your arrival in this location is our first idea on containing future invasions. Is it satisfactory?"

Shawn looked over to A-0 calmly while Serperior moved to circle the group and Gazimon looked over the area critically. "Confirmed, they have somehow restricted where transport systems can arrive to this location," the Porygon said with forced calm. "We should move just in case."

The Guardians seemed almost embarrassed as the team shifted out of what turned out to be a section of the floor that had a strange looking lighter color. "Sorry, we haven't- Well I guess we haven't even existed very long," 8-0A said as they shifted to give the Troubleshooters more space. "We hoped that you were coming, but I guess we didn't think about what would happen when you got here."

"Troubleshooters," a new deep and even more mechanical voice said from the massive shelving units. "You arrived. I am Manifest 8-00 of this Bulk Item Server. We have attempted to maintain operations in the wake of our new incarnation, and have done what we could to prevent the invaders from stealing from this new location." The creature was a more massive box shaped machine with six large legs, a pair of what seemed to be screens on its front, and two antenna extending from the rear edges of its body. One leg was moving rather stiffly, and the left antenna was missing the upper portion with a clean break. "We are still working to clarify our existence, but for the moment we have a solid idea of the functions of our various forms."

"That's a good start," Shawn responded carefully while looking over the large machine creature. "Do you know if you are all stable?"

"Frighteningly so given what reports we have read," the Manifest replied. "We have only seen minor issues in myself and the Shippers." The displays on its front then shifted to show an image of itself. "My own function seems to be the organization and management of the storage server. I have communications access to all units, the ability and systems to preform analytics on our operations, along with access to the company data archives and report submission capacity." The left display shifted to the boxy cone shape of a Shipper. "Shipping units have the capability to transfer items into and out of the server, along with a variety of verification sensor systems. Both of our functions briefly resulted in our experiencing errors regarding the major changes in our function."

"Given past experiences, you haven't had time to recover from that," A-0 said seriously. "What is still giving you problems?"

"He said it was frightening for us," Shipper 8-04 interjected. "After the invaders left we went over the documents on those errors to see what they meant. We found a few issues that were similar, and the explanations of the presumed causes. Then out of nowhere the issues began to stop occurring."

"So, you looked at what might be the problem you were having, and then it got fixed?" Gazimon asked a bit less uneasily than his teammates. "Did you try doing anything differently to not have those problems, or was the problem just that you didn't know you could do something?"

Most of the nearby machine creatures looked somewhat surprised at the statement. "That, might actually explain some of the situation," Manifest 8-00 said thoughtfully. "I have altered my actions from rote attempts at my original programming in response to the documents. We also started exploring and testing our abilities more thoroughly at that point."

"What about the little ones, what are they?" Serperior asked eying the small creatures floating around the group at a short distance and whispering between each other.

"Those are our Loader units. They transport items around the facility and preform general tasks," the massive machine said displaying an example of the creatures. "They are the most plentiful of us, with 150 existing at the time of conversion."

"How many do you have now?" Shawn asked looking thoughtful at the phrasing the digital life form had used.

Manifest 8-00 stood still for a moment before turning down an aisle. "Please follow me, I will show you the site of the intruder's incursion." The group followed behind cautiously as he led them deeper between the massive storage racks. Grey spheres with groves splitting them into eight sections sat in rows of indents on the shelves. The majority were a bit larger than a pokeball, but some located lower down were a variety of smaller sizes.

After a short time they came to a damaged shelving unit and section of cracked ground, with sections of the indent filled structure of the shelf stacked to the side of the damage containing a small quantity of spheres. "This is where they arrived, and the location we confronted them at," he continued displaying the final kind of digital creature they had seen so far. "Guardians are the incarnation of our security systems. Capable of not only checking for threats and credentials in the database, but also of combating them with electrical and physical attacks. However, ours were still disoriented from becoming alive, and thus the Loaders felt the need to aid them in fighting off the thieves."

"What exactly happened here?" A-0 asked with a mix of worry and concern. Shawn and Serperior were both watching the various machine creatures, while Gazimon seemed more confused by his teammates' reactions than worried about the digital life forms around them.

"One of our Loaders recorded the events. Loader 8-8F, report to incident location," the Manifest said, the last statement sounding out across the facility as if by a loudspeaker. Soon after a nervous looking claw shaped machine arrived. "The Troubleshooters wish to see your recording of the events."

The creature looked nervously at the group of pokemon. "This place, existing I guess, happened in the middle of transferring items to the small transactions buffer. We were scrambling to get things to what looked like the right place so we didn't fail in our purpose," it began to explain cautiously. "I was at the top of that unit." It pointed to a nearby intact shelf that had a good view of the battlefield with one of its limbs. "I, I did not want- I thought that we would need to have a record of what happened," it finished with clear embarrassment at remaining where it had been located.

"Let's see it," A-0 instructed far more calmly than its previous statements. The large machine wobbled forward in an ill advised attempt at a nod, and then proceeded to display the footage on both of its screens.

\---

Bob was on alert as soon as the group arrived, the red digital case in his hand ready to be opened. Alice was already working on her palm computer to try and bypass the security directly now that it was compromised by the changes. "Yo, techs, are you sure we are in the right place?" one of the two grunts with them asked looking at the pristine structure around them, with small machines floating around in something of a hurry to move large spheres.

"We are," he told the fairly new recruit. "This is Digital Storage Solutions, if anyone has an advanced enough system to manage this it is them." Despite this he was still worried about the results. "Alice, are you having any luck?"

"Not yet, Bob. The thing is definitely alive now, but it is still sticking with the security requirements," she said tapping in commands with some frustration. "We might need to just brute force this one."

"Unknown individuals, identify yourselves," a metal sphere said to them, with another floating close from the other end of the aisle. All around them the smaller machines stopped to turn and look at the group.

"Ah yes," Bob replied putting on the typical act. "I'm Robert Smith, we're here for an inspection of the site."

The sphere remained silent for a moment after he said this, and Bob had the impression that it was looking at him with some disbelief. "You identity is not on file," it said dully. "Identify, yourselves," it continued more strongly, obviously out of patience. Around them robotic mumbling broke out between the smaller machines.

"I didn't think they were that articulate," the other grunt said under his breath nervously while the first reached for his pokeball.

"I'm Andrea Clark from accounting," Alice broke in while tapping at her computer as Bob turned to look behind their group. "Robert is new and-"

"You do not match our records for Ms. Clark," a new deeper voice said as Bob prepared the case to open. The large machine looking at them had a security badge displayed on one of its two monitors, clearly showing a different woman as its picture. "You are also holding the source of a number of attempts to gain access to our system using improper credentials." The sphere shaped machines snapped out an array of spikes across their surface that sparked with electricity, including a third that floated out from behind the new threat. "As a result of these repeated attempts at deception I must assume you are attempting to break in, and given the timing of this occurrence that you are also responsible for our being alive."

"Dos, intercept," Bob ordered as he clacked open the case. The red glittering contents spilled out, taking up far more room than the container itself. They were an entire swarm of polygonal constructs, each being three perfectly flat claw shaped structures connected at one end. These immediately moved to fill the space between their group and the machines. "Grunts, take em down." A Raticate and Koffing appeared in front of the two trainers. The spherical machines quickly began to move to attack these threats. "Alice, start grabbing the loot." His fellow tech nodded and ran over to the nearest shelving unit while tapping at her computer.

"Cutting outside communications," she replied before starting to load the spherical containers into a large bag.

"Guardian units, invasion in progress. Intruders present," echoed across the facility as the large machine spoke. The first grunt's Raticate tackled the sphere that had asked them the questions.

"What is happening Bob?" the second grunt asked as one of Dos placed itself in between an electrical burst and his Koffing. "I thought that creating a digital world messed everything up inside." The pokemon then followed up the Normal type's attack with a powerful hit at the same spot. There was a cracking sound from the machine, which then burst into shards.

"03!" the other sphere shouted. It then sent out a wide discharge of electricity destroying many of the small digital creatures and charged forward towards the human members of the group.

"Guardian 8-00, remain cautious," the newcomer sphere said to it with some worry while firing its spikes towards the pokemon. "They are trying to destroy us one at a time."

"Smart robots is not normal at all. Alice, can you get an exit ready?" Bob asked as he saw a number of new Guardians appear at either end of the aisle. "Dos, attack nearby, collect loot." The simple creatures quickly split into the two tasks based on how close they were to the mechanical foes. Those near the Guardians began to glow slightly while attempting to slash at them with their bodies, while the ones closer to the racks began to cluster around the items on the shelves in groups in order to lift them.

"Unit 6," his teammate said letting out a black and red colored Porygon out of her own pokeball. "Rapid extraction, Hackware carrying loot." The digital pokemon beeped deeply and a black glow began to cover the members of the team, their pokemon, and the small Dos around them. "The communications block I setup will go down for a moment before we are out," Alice cautioned as she went to continue grabbing from the shelves alongside the Dos.

"Thieves!" "Stealing!" "Stop them!" the smallest of the machine creatures shouted in response to the change in tactics. The devices then began to slam their bodies into the polygonal creatures, stopping some from lifting their goal and making others drop the heavy spheres.

Soon after while Koffing attempted another followup on a Guardian knocked to the ground by the swarm, the largest machine clambered to jump forward between the two of them. Its massive body did not take this maneuver well, skidding so that rather than simply blocking the pokemon it slammed harshly into it and continued through the group of foes to smash into the nearly emptied shelf. As it impacted one of its antenna bent with a cracking sound, soon followed by the shelving unit crumpling around it sending spheres rolling.

"Protect Manifest, keep them away," one small machine at the far edge of the fight called out, then began to organize the others of its kind that were nearby to accomplish the task. The larger spiked Guardians also began to take a more organized approach to eliminating the red constructs and keeping the remaining pokemon off balance.

"Alice, get us out now!" Bob had to order seeing that their team was not winning the fight. Their Porygon then gave a series of beeping sounds in response, followed by a red flash covering the entire area.

\---

Shawn's team watched as the flash cleared from the footage, revealing that all of the enemy forces had vanished along with most of the storage containers they had in their possession. Moments after it became clear the conflict was over a number of visible Loader units began to glow and change shape. All but one of these grew into Guardians, with the exception being the single Loader who had organized its fellows after Manifest 8-00's attack. That individual instead became another Manifest, quickly reacting to make sure the other of its new kind had survived.

"Good work staying put and saving this footage," A-0 said calmly to the Loader as the recording cut out. "What were your losses?"

"Combat losses were four Guardians destroyed and eleven Loaders. Additionally a total of eight Loaders evolved," Manifest 8-00 replied. "Resulting in a total decrease in Loader count of nineteen, and a net gain of three Guardians and one Manifest." The large machine turned to look at the destroyed shelf. "Manifest 8-01 is currently overseeing a stock check to determine total losses from the theft."

"Is there any way to replace them?" Serperior asked sympathetically while Shawn moved to look over the damage critically. "Or do you at least have an idea of what programs could be used to make more by introducing them to this system?"

"At the far end of the facility from the loading docks is a separate area with a number of devices inside for creating the various parts of our system," the machine replied. "Including one that is capable of creating new Loaders, and others we are using to build replacement parts. We have made two new units so far, but are holding off on replacing the rest until." He sighed heavily. "Until we know if it is worth the energy expenditure. Are we being shut down?" he then asked with sorrow.

"We don't make that call," Shawn said looking over the skid marks leading to the shelf. "What we are doing right now is getting clear information on what happened here and how stable things are currently."

"If it is possible I wish to personally speak with our management on what has happened," Manifest 8-00 requested without real hope.

"The transport pad is rather small, we would have to bring you out after ourselves," A-0 replied quickly while looking critically at the damage. "Is there anything else you need to see Shawn?"

Gazimon remained quiet while the others looked over the area nervously. "We will want a copy of that recording," Shawn answered. "But I think Manifest can bring that when we bring him over."

"I will bring all of the data we currently have," the machine declared proudly. "We should have transport restrictions setup more stably soon, and full item transport will be able to be restored after that."

\---

"What are we dealing with?" Janice asked as soon as they were back, before even waiting for them to be able to see again.

"Apparently something that freaked everybody out," Gazimon complained now that they were away from the server's inhabitants. "Looked like a typical digital warehouse to me. Bunch of little digimon and machines obsessed with keeping the place running."

"We are not familiar with naturally occurring digital creatures," Serperior replied thoughtfully. "Maybe you should give your view of it first before we go into detail."

"We arrived in a digital warehouse. The locals were upset over the attack, but knew we were their bosses so were happy to see us afterwards," Gazimon started somewhat nervously after a moment of everyone staring expectantly at him. "They began by explaining how they were trying to prevent it from happening again, and then their leader showed up to give us the full story. He then explained what they'd learned about how the place worked, showed us where the attack happened along with a video one of them made, and finally asked if he could give the full report directly."

Janice listened to the description with a raised eyebrow. "They were that stable?" she asked concerned.

"Worse than that bad," Shawn responded. "They were fully realized for their tasks and intelligent enough to react to new conditions. Gazimon actually noted one reason they might be so advanced. They have been reading everything we have in the system to figure out problems, and he suggested they might be fixing themselves with that information."

"We need to ask the dev team what sorts of contingencies they have setup for the programs that run item storage systems ending up in our Boxes," A-0 said motioning for the group to get off the pad. "Given how well everything was running there? I suspect they were ready for this sort of thing."

"Unofficially maybe, I think those digital life forms would know if anything like that was actually written down," Serperior added. "They responded well to the attackers. Which is a much bigger threat than they are." He pointed at A-0. "The thieves' Porygon isn't as advanced as A-0 or any of the Administrators, but it obviously had gotten people in and out of digital worlds before. We are looking at a method of attack that's been used before."

The team then began to go over observations on the creatures and structures seen in the digital world in brief detail, with A-0 contributing scans it had made throughout the trip. Particular note was made of how throughly the entry and exit restrictions had been implemented, and how the items were stored from what they can tell.

"Right, let's bring this 'Manifest' over to tell his side of things," Janice announced after the short discussion.

"I have him ready to go," Metang said calmly. "The access to the site has become much clearer since your visit. Shall I bring him up now?" The Team Lead nodded, and moments later there was another flash from the cleared pad revealing the large machine creature.

"Manifest 8-00?" Janice asked as the digital creature fumbled for a moment with the blindness caused by the transfer. "Do you have your reports ready to submit?"

"Um, yes. I have the main recording, a couple of partials from other angles, a complete current inventory, and data on operational concerns," the Manifest responded cautiously as it looked around with a bit of wonder.

"Good, management is having a meeting for this incident and I want you there with me," she responded getting a confused look from the other Troubleshooters. "A-0, Shawn, keep watch for a repeat of this and be ready to respond." She then led the digital life form out of the Lab.

"Management is acting unusually rapidly," Metang said in the wake of their exit. "We received word of the meeting during your excursion, and a request for data collection and basic analysis soon afterward."

"So, is somebody going to explain why you were all spending the whole time in there freaking out now?" Gazimon asked harshly.

"Because we were just surrounded by an entire army of newly created creatures?" Serperior asked a bit tiredly. "I have never seen that many intelligent created life forms before. You do remember how worried we were with just how smart LAS was right?"

"They are at least that smart, and already going over our records on digital world manipulation and management," A-0 added bluntly. "If they didn't seem to be loyal and stable I think I would be terrified right now."

"Metang, can you get us into contact with the other Manifest?" Shawn asked suddenly.

"I can initiate communications with the server," the pokemon replied with some confusion.

"What's wrong?" Grant asked trying to follow the conversation. "Is there something else we missed?"

"If we know where they started looking for help in the documentation, then we will know where to put anything we want the next group to know," the other trainer replied. "So they can setup those entry restrictions before the thieves even get there and have their combat creatures ready to hold them off for us."


	20. 2-02 Investigators

\--- Investigators ---

Janice arrived at the rapidly assembled meeting to discover every department manager and the entire upper management of the company were already present. Remaining outwardly calm she moved to take an open seat while motioning to Manifest 8-00 to stand behind her in the small amount of room between her and the wall.

"Ms Grades, I'm glad you were prompt," Manager Archer, the overall manager of the various IT departments, said as she sat down. "We are still waiting for one more person before we start." She simply nodded and took in the serious atmosphere of the room. The lack of comment and minimal glances towards the digital life form told her that this was strangely well prepared for, as if many of those present were expecting such an attack to happen relatively soon.

Just a short time later a man in a trench coat arrived in something of a hurry. "Alright, I'm here. You guys really do like having a handle on things, I don't think I've ever had a victim teleport me to their offices as soon as an attack happened before," he said with a bit of a laugh while lifting a briefcase. "So, do you also have a projector I can use?"

"Investigator Roberts," CEO Silo greeted the new arrival as they prepared the equipment drawing everyone's full attention. "You have been leading the efforts against these thieves across the world, correct? Could you please provide my managers with an explanation of the full extent of this threat?" There was a hint of humor in the otherwise entirely serious question. Janice noted that a few members of the item storage leadership looking upset by the statement, specifically those who were particularly resistant to the Box storage system.

The new arrival looked around somewhat nervously as he started up a presentation from a small computer within his case. "Right, I am Investigator Roberts. My team is working to track down and bring in a Team Rocket remnant calling itself 'Team Upload'." An image appeared on the screen of a number of individuals in the same mostly red uniforms that had appeared in the Bulk Item Server, along with a Porygon matching the colors of the one from the same event. "They were previously Rocket's information technologies section, and in particular the team working for that organization on the creation and use of Porygon." The next slide was of an empty computer lab with large 'R' logos on it, obviously cleared out quite quickly. "They were able to escape the main raids on Rocket holdings using experimental digital teleportation technologies supported by a small number of Porygon, between eight and twelve."

"I was under the impression that the Porygon Team Rocket made were inferior specimens of the species?" Manager Pallet cut in, one of the managers Janice had seen frowning at the CEO's statement. His interruption received a dark look from the development team members present.

"The majority of those they made were, but these were their top of the line experimental examples," the Investigator continued nodding. "We have so far managed to capture three of them, leaving between five and nine remaining in their possession. Those have allowed them to act against computer systems far more easily than similar criminal organizations, and also given them greater ability to avoid detection." He clicked through a short set of slides of some additional rapidly vacated facilities, with progressively refined 'U' markings. "They have been leading myself and my team on a chase that has managed to cross entire regions using their ability to travel using digital transport methods." The next slide was a world map with a series of lines connecting locations, along with notes about the information system used to make the transfer. "Which I believe they have further refined into their most recent method of attack."

The next slide was the inside of a simplistic boxy building, with a number of broken storage crates that had oddly straight edges on the damaged segments. "Team Upload has begun to exploit an obscure side effect of the research that produced the original Porygon. Alternate worlds created as a byproduct of advanced computer systems." The slide shifted to a number of storage server setups with notes describing thefts. "Or in this case, artificial worlds that Team Upload is creating out of digital storage setups." The Investigator looked over the room for a moment, and was caught slightly off guard by how little reaction this produced in those present.

"What this does to those systems gives them two advantages in their operations," he continued notably regaining his nerve. "First, the process tends to disrupt any previously present security or access systems for the storage. Which allows them to more easily bypass protections already in place." Another slide of the simplistic storage facility appeared, this time showing a misshapen thing that appeared to be looking over the damage. "And second, they are able to use their transport method to enter these new worlds directly, allowing them to physically deal with any remaining security and then by hand empty the contents."

This seemed to get the point across to the majority of those present, as they all turned for a moment to look at Janice. "How long have they been using this method?" she asked looking critically at the image presented. The corruption shown was moderately advanced by her reckoning, at the higher end of the part of the scale Gazimon called 'In Training'.

"For the past two months they have been slowly escalating the use of this tactic," he answered looking over notes in his case. "Starting with just a couple of small sites, but with how widespread your operations are I can't imagine the level of resources they have now gained. Do you have an idea of what all was in the system they hit here?"

"Ms Grades, is your report on our own investigation ready?" the CEO asked looking over the Manifest thoughtfully. "I do not recognize the particular Porygon with you today."

"Manifest 8-00 is not actually a Porygon, sir," she replied easily, causing some confusion in all of those present. "He does have the inventory of losses to the attack available, and a number of other details regarding the incident. Do you want the full report now?" Getting a nod she began by giving the timeline she had used to brief Shawn's team. "Once we had a handle on the change to the system I called in our Pokemon Box Troubleshooting teams to investigate directly. Porygon Alpha Zero and Shawn Reading led the expedition into the new digital world, locating the transport and security programs within. Manifest 8-00, the system's administration program, then gave them an overview of the attack."

"Expedition?" Investigator Roberts asked somewhat faintly while staring at the digital life form.

"From their analysis the creatures generated by the conversion to a digital world are quite stable, and have already begun to implement further defenses against a repeat attack. The item storage and access portions of the system appear functional. Manifest, can you provide your own data on the events and status of your system?" she asked turning to face him.

"Yes, I have that information," the machine said quite nervously while glancing at the various members of the management staff in the room. "Perhaps I should begin with our account of losses from the event?" He shuffled nervously and looked at the cables being used for the projector. "I have some images of my own if it would be possible for me to use the equipment?" Janice looked across the table to get the Investigator's attention. He fumbled to unhook his computer to hand the cables over. Janice quickly took them from the shocked man to attached them to an area the creature opened on his side containing a number of ports. "Right, first off the total losses from storage are as follows:"

A slide appeared on the projector that Manifest 8-00 began to read. "120 units of standard potions, 30 units of super potions, and 10 units of full heals were all confirmed to be taken by the invaders during their escape. It is unknown how many of those were damaged during the conflict, but remaining behind were also 25 potions, 5 super potions, and 20 full heals damaged by the events that are also no longer available." The Manifest then shuffled slightly to look at the bulk item storage management. "We are quite sorry that we were unable to prevent these losses. Security to protect against further intruders from arriving within the storage areas themselves have already been implemented, along with placement of Guardian units at any attempted entry. We are hoping to develop more methods of stopping such an attack from happening again."

"Manifest also has recordings of the events with him," Janice prompted. The creature started projecting the video after a short moment of internal fumbling that caused other data to be displayed briefly on the screen. Investigator Roberts and most of the managers watched with great interest as the events progressed, while the item storage managers seemed much more concerned with analyzing the storage facility itself.

"Are those artificial corruption?" one of the development team asked as the red digital life forms poured out of the case on the recording, prompting Manifest 8-00 stopped the playback. "I think they might be. The structures are definitely Porygon derived, possibly created by the ones the Investigator mentioned being in their employ." She leaned forward to look at the image a bit better. "I hope that you have some scans of their construction. They seem quite stable."

"Surviving Guardian units have provided scans of the 'Dos' digital life forms," the Manifest answered. "According to our reference materials on corruption they did exhibit unusual stability and obedience from digital creatures that simple. No fragments of destroyed examples were found, and all living examples successfully escaped." He then resumed the recording to show the creatures in action as the Team Upload forces realized they were in trouble.

"'Hackware'," Investigator Roberts repeated the Upload Tech's word while watching the Porygon extract the thieves. "Not 'Dos' that time. Implying there are more kinds." He then once more grew shocked as the Loaders evolved into more advanced forms at the end of the fight just before the end of the footage. "You called them 'corruption'," he accused lightly after a moment.

"Digital Storage Solutions uses artificial digital worlds for the purpose of Pokemon Box storage," CEO Silo calmly stated. "Ms Grades is in charge of our team that deals with digital threats to that service. Which is why we want you working with her on this threat."

"We still have other options," commented Manager Pallet. Janice was now sure that he was one of those in management who had been quite sure in the past that the Box hardware could be put to better use on their own projects. "Preventing this kind of problem from starting should be a priority. You must have some information on that front?" he questioned the Investigator, while earning very dark looks from many other members of the management staff.

"Mr Pallet, despite your many assertions to the contrary, and the accompanying restrictions on outgoing messages regarding the situation, we do not and can not stop this from happening now," Manager Archer replied caustically. "The simple and blunt truth is that the rest of us have been moving forward with the plan despite your mistaken ideas." He then turned to Investigator Roberts. "We have been in contact with your superiors for a while now, but sadly needed some justification to bring you in directly. We possess full digital world transfer and analysis equipment, along with staff trained and experienced in its use."

"Team Upload is a threat to our entire industry," the CEO said glaring at Manager Pallet and a couple of others with similar outlooks. "Every system they compromise is another blow to the idea of digital storage as safe. Every site stripped of everything is another reason to not use the capability at all. The victory Manifest 8-00 and his subordinates have won us against them is a start to saving the industry as a whole, but they can still grow stronger, and not every location can use the defenses we possess."

"Shawn is on standby with his team to assist in any followup attacks," Janice added looking uncharitably at everyone present while the Manifest boggled behind her from the praise. "My Metang is sure they can get transport access to any newly created digital worlds on our system before 'Team Upload' can manage to get anywhere near as far as we saw there. Should we have been aware of this tactic my team would have had these options in place weeks ago," she harshly criticized silencing the room.

"How soon can Bulk Item Server #8 resume operations?" another storage manager asked a few moments later as the silence that followed that condemnation stretched on. "The losses are regrettable, but low given the past situations of this nature. Naturally there is the minimum of 48 hours offline for security recovery."

"Partial operation is available at any time," Manifest 8-00 replied quickly. "The small transactions buffer is a security risk in the event of further invaders, as keeping the items close enough to the restriction areas to maintain current input and output times also leaves them in range of any arrivals." The projector displayed an image of the server's dock area and the lighter colored sections in front of each Shipper unit. It also revealed smaller racks set out close to the areas, but currently empty of storage spheres. "We can otherwise maintain bulk shipments at close to the previous transfer speed, depending on available Loader units and current transfer requirements of Shipper units. Loader unit quantity is currently down 17 units compared to creation time, but those units can be replaced within the 48 hour lock down period."

"Would more of the 'Shipper' or 'Loader' creatures speed up the facility's processing capabilities?" the same manager asked with interest.

"Initial Loader quantity was 150 units, no prior bulk order has reached the scale to require so many at one time," the machine digital life form answered. "Additional Loader units would only be needed in the event of multiple large scale bulk item moves occurring simultaneously. Similarly each Shipper unit can handle any quantity of product arriving in the facility from or exiting it to any single site. We can thus simultaneously serve eight different locations at one time." The next image was of the eight docks from one of the ends of the server. "Their limiting factor is physical space within the facility for items to arrive or be placed to leave. We might be able to reconfigure locations to add to the ability to transport items in parallel, but at the cost of storage capacity or increasing complexity of operations."

The manager was now looking quite thoughtfully at the digital life form. "With any luck we won't have to adapt to any more of the storage systems being converted into these digital worlds," the CEO said cutting off the line of questioning. "Janice, please take Investigator Roberts to the Troubleshooter Lab and help him get setup. We know that your own work is still necessary, but this is a priority. The rest of us have some other issues relating to this event we need to discuss while the two of you get started."

"Yes, sir. Do you need Manifest 8-00 here, or can he return to his server?" the Troubleshooter Lead replied calmly as she stood to leave.

"No, not at this time. He can return to manage getting his server ready for use again." The machine creature shuffled behind her a bit more proudly than when they had arrived.

"I'll need to contact my assistant first. We have some gear that, well that probably is below what you are using, but still he is working with me on this project," Investigator Roberts said packing up his briefcase.

"We can let him know and give directions to the correct location," the CEO replied calmly as they left.

\---

The team was clustered around Metang with pads of paper and open panes when the three of them arrived back in the Troubleshooter Lab. The ongoing discussion stopped as soon as they spotted the human traveling with her. "Investigator Roberts, let me introduce my Troubleshooters," Janice said as she walked in. "Porygon A-0." The digital pokemon bobbed and gave a short greeting. "Support Metang" The machine like pokemon said a simple translated hello. "Trainer Shawn and Starter Serperior." The red eyed trainer waved along with his pokemon as they both spoke their own greeting in sync. "Digimon Gazimon." The rabbit monster nodded and said hello. "Fossil Hunter Grant." The remaining human of the group nodded nervously. "Fossil Kabutops." The Rock/Water type shot the Lead a look as he said hello. "Quagsire." The amphibian simply looked at them unimpressed and gave a croak. "And Dugtrio."

"She does remember that two of us can't talk, right?" the pure Ground type asked with some annoyance while ignoring the new arrival.

"Um, all but two of the pokemon just answered you," the Investigator said with obvious confusion. "Before this I've only seen a single pokemon that could talk at all."

"Honestly? That is just a weird part of this group," Kabutops responded. "Is he here about the theft?"

"The identity of our invaders is apparently a 'Team Upload'," Janice answered, then turned to look at A-0 directly. "They are the remnants of Team Rocket's Porygon experiments."

"Blue Light won't be happy with that," the Porygon replied sounding rather upset himself. "He's still trying to get the other rescues calmed down. What is the full situation?"

"Investigator Roberts here has apparently been chasing a group with Porygon capable of transferring in and out of digital systems without a pad," the Team Lead replied moving to sit at her console. "Apparently it has taken us getting attacked ourselves to justify letting him use ours to go after them."

"I take it there is a story there?" Quagsire asked eyeing the Investigator, who watched her speak warily.

"Probably, but I only have part of it," Janice replied after Metang provided a translation using a clearly different voice on their device. "How have things gone here while I was getting him?"

"We've created some initial drafts of documents any other storage servers can use in case of more conversions," Shawn answered blinking his red eyes deliberately at the new human. "If you have some more detailed information we can add it."

"Documentation?" Manifest 8-00 asked walking up to the pad. "On how to deal with becoming alive and then likely being attacked?" The trainer nodded to confirm the question. "Part of me wishes that you were informed of this risk beforehand. Then I may have received some documents of that kind."

"I do not like that sound of that," Serperior said seriously and slid forward from Shawn's shoulder to the floor to look at the Investigator better.

"Not his fault, from what I can tell he's as confused as we are," Janice warned the pokemon. "What have you been doing to track them so far?" she then asked looking over at the man.

"My assistant has most of our gear. We've been using some specialized visualizer gear to look inside and scan for some traces of the exit portals," Roberts answered watching the serpent nervously. "He hopefully will be here soon with them."

Serperior looked over the Investigator one last time before moving back to Shawn. The pokemon had just resumed his normal location on his trainer when a young man around the same age as Shawn walked in carrying a number of large travel bags. "Rob, I got the stuff. Where are we putting it while they get-" the assistant froze as he spotted the red eyed trainer.

Shawn had also stilled at the sight of the new arrival, but his motion was more like a snake seeing a threat. Serperior was clearly in the same state, if a bit more understandably. The cold looks of A-0 and Janice were the last hint Gazimon needed to turn his own dark look at the newcomer. "Jack," Shawn practically hissed. "It has been a while since we last spoke hasn't it?"

"Shawn? What happened to your eyes?" Jack asked with clear worry. Investigator Roberts turned to look over his assistant confused by the reactions.

"Just a simple side effect of our job," Serperior answered darkly. "Why I was just dealing with my sister being mad about it happening just a few days ago. We've managed to keep in touch with her after all."

"Did Slasher just talk?" the former rival asked faintly.

"Ah, that name. I haven't used that name for a long time now," the snake pokemon replied sliding forward along Shawn's shoulders. "It wasn't really needed after we separated from my sister. I simply go by Serperior now."

"I take it you know each other?" the Investigator asked curiously. "Pretty well too if they're talking about your starter I still haven't met yet."

"We traveled together at the start," Jack said uneasily. "Things didn't work out, and I went my own way."

"We would have followed you," Shawn said quietly. "If you had just said something we would have gone with you."

"We couldn't do it the way we wanted, Shawn," the other trainer argued. "That just isn't the way the world works. Just because the three of you thought it could work out somehow doesn't mean it would have."

"If you think that's why my sister isn't with you then you are a fool," Serperior coldly said moving over his trainer to look at the other more closely, ending up with his head a good way off the ground supported mostly by Shawn's shoulder. Both the Investigator and Jack taking a step back at the massive pokemon's advance. "If you think, even for an instant, that she didn't already know that, then she's right about you." The cold blue slit eyes of the serpent locked on Jack's. "You didn't really understand her at all."

"I'm not sure about trainer etiquette, I am not one myself," Janice cut in no less harshly. "But I think that trainers who are friends should not discover that one of them made it to the League from the television."

"Ouch," Roberts said to that statement. "Are we going to have a problem here?" he asked looking around at the anger in the room.

"I say we have the new guy work with Grant," Gazimon replied with a casual tone. "That way the guy who doesn't know Jack here is able to get a feel for him, and we can put both the idiots in one place," the digimon joked harshly.

"Given how badly my trainer apparently messed up, I think I'm now afraid for whatever pokemon this guy is going to end up inside," Quagsire said, shooting a glare at Metang as the machine like pokemon provided a real time translation of her statement.

"I can work with him," Serperior said bluntly sliding backwards to his typical position. "Our job is more important than old grudges." Shawn simply nodded at the statement.

"It has been quite some time, and you are vouching for him," Janice said coldly. "However, having seen how long my colleague has been attempting to get in contact with Mr Ladder I must admit some unease with working with him."

"I have not dealt with a traitor before," A-0 said mechanically even for a Porygon.

"A-0," Shawn cut in before the digital pokemon could continue. "I was an idiot back then too."

"Right, what's the gear that he was bringing up with him again?" Grant asked clearly trying to steer the conversation away from conflict.

"We have a sensor array we've been sending through using a pokeball transfer device," Investigator Roberts said quickly latching onto the attempt. "Then we have been connecting to it inside the digital world and gathering information using it."

"May I see the sensor array?" Manifest 8-00 asked from the pad. "I have rather complete information on the sensors available to Guardian and Loader units to compare with, along with my own systems. We might already have some of the data you are after collected."

"Jack, go ahead and get it out," the Investigator instructed. The trainer nervously set down the various bags and moved to a medium sized one to open it. He took out a small manual and a ball shaped drone. "It is rather advanced, we had some trouble getting one to start with."

"A Model 1460 Wildlife Camera," Grant noted walking closer. "I've used one of those before, even if none of Manifest's people have the same sensors as one LAS definitely does."

"We have some added sensors from a digital analysis system," Jack said handing the manual to the Investigator, who instead passed it along to the Manifest.

The digital life form spent a moment looking over the device's manual, along with a few smaller manuals slipped between the pages for storage. "A-0, come look," he then said neutrally, prompting the Porygon to float over.

"Bad news?" Gazimon asked bluntly.

"If this is the best gear they have for finding a digital threat?" A-0 asked disbelievingly. "Yeah, absolutely horrible news. You have a better sensor array than this thing."

"That, isn't actually as unimpressive as you're implying," the digimon countered. "The whole switch thing seems to have let me look at code and stuff a lot more than before."

"It can't be that bad," Jack insisted with some confusion.

"You could do better by taping a pokedex to it," the Porygon complained.

"As with Gazimon, this thing is rather heavily customized," Shawn said holding up the team's example. "It even has a spot for a keystone." He demonstrated by opening a small compartment. "The development team didn't skimp on anything for this one."

"So we already have the data it could scan?" Janice asked refocusing the conversation.

"If they are able to somehow locate the invaders using the information this can collect then we can definitely use just what I have right now to do so," Manifest 8-00 said somewhat confused.

"Did they preform a standard exit, or an emergency one?" Metang asked thoughtfully.

"It didn't look standard to me," Investigator Roberts said uneasily. "Can that influence such things?"

"The standard method used by our Troubleshooters to exit is to have a Porygon inside the Box provide the exit," the Steel/Psychic type noted. "The emergency method is to have an outside pad draw them out of the Box as rapidly as possible. Data remnants for these methods is different."

The Investigator and his assistant looked at each other nervously. "Well, the truth is we've mostly been using multiple attack sites to build a picture of their origin point," Jack said uneasily. "Last time we ran into the issue of them using multiple sites to operate out of when they hit places."

"Was that before or after they started making their own digital worlds?" Janice jumped in somewhat panicked.

"Before, the data we've been getting now using the array has been unusual compared to the old method," Roberts admitted. "Tracking them back to the base or bases they've been using for these new attacks is our goal."

"You haven't been double checking the old attack sites often have you?" Shawn asked uneasy with the topic, and received a shake of their heads in response. "Then they could possibly be using digital worlds as midpoints between their base and their targets, including any of their previous targets that are still running."

A short period of silence followed. "Jack, get everything unpacked. We need to get started now," Investigator Roberts said faintly.


	21. 2-03 Second Theft

\--- Second Theft ---

Anderson looked over the data collected by Unit 6 in their latest attack. The former head of Team Rocket's Porygon project did not have much attachment to his current facility, despite the advances in their security allowing for less risk of losing it anytime soon. Perhaps even in spite of that fact. His digital creations, the Hackware that was supporting their ever more limited pool of Porygon, were not progressing very well in the old office building, and transferring to a better location was out of the cards while it remained secure against the law.

"Anderson," Executive Thomas said darkly from the entrance of the room. The current leader of Team Upload had earned that place by being the highest ranked member of their old organization to escape with them. "What was that?" he questioned harshly. "Advanced, rich, even well protected, all of that I expected to a degree. This was a fully armed and stocked storage facility complete with prepared security forces."

"It is quite an interesting case. Something stabilized the world as we made it," the developer replied. "I suspected they might have prepared for an attack by our conversion method, but the solution this provides is more advanced than I expected."

"Which leaves me with two questions," the Boss of Team Upload responded harshly. "What can we do about it to get into their storage systems, and how likely is it they can spread that method around?"

"Hmm, I will tackle the second one first I think," Anderson said standing up to walk over to the far end of the room. All along the wall was the flat colored glowing red polygons of a mass of Hackware. "Incredibly unlikely. In fact I will need quite a bit more information on how their systems work just to determine how they did it at all." A small swarm of Dos lifted out of the mass, followed by a trio of larger creatures looking like fully three dimensional versions of those smaller constructs. "As for how to make a successful attempt against them, our best bet is to overwhelm the defenses and take what we can in the time available. The security programs will still be limited in number." Three still larger Hackware emerged, a four legged crab like construct that was noticeably stronger than both the other kinds, a thin tube shaped creature with a number of two dimensional claws extending off it partially phased through the floor, and a third that was a square structure that was narrower at the top and bottom with glowing markings that scanned the pair with clear intelligence. "Sufficient force should provide the victory we are after, if only for long enough to get a good portion of the contents," he finished tapping the Crab.

Executive Thomas looked over the creatures thoughtfully for a moment. "Heh, sure. As long as we have these little abominations we might as well put them to use," he laughed. "I'll send Alice and Bob to handle your 'Hackware' so the grunts don't need to bother. You should be able to spare them for a followup, correct?" he asked making it clear it wasn't really a question.

"Of course boss," Anderson said tightly while the other man walked out past the pet bed set by the door. "Nothing to say?" he asked after their leader was out of earshot.

"It will be a disaster of course, but this one has better outcomes for us than avoiding it," a rough voice answered him. "We are missing something about Digital Storage Solutions, and going after them again is a perfect way to learn what it is."

\---

"Bulk Server 4 just had a power use spike," A-0 shouted as the team sat waiting for issues. They were all up early in case of Upload following the same timing as the day before in the hopes of avoiding active response, and it seemed to be paying off. Grant and his team were still resting to have someone fresh for a latter attack by either Upload or corruption. The Investigator and his assistant were on site, but had taken the overnight shift as they felt that an even earlier attack was most likely.

"Memory usage drop confirmed, formation in progress," Metang replied calmly. "Starting transfer pad sync."

Shawn's team was quickly on the pad waiting for the system to be ready, with A-0 joining a moment afterward. "Rules of engagement?" Serperior asked with just a hint of humor.

"Try to take whoever is there alive. Don't kill humans or pokemon if you can help it, and try and take some of the 'Hackware' alive for us to analyze," Janice stated dryly. "Priority is keeping any of the newly made inhabitants alive, so if you need to smash the constructs to do that don't get too broken up over it." She tapped at her console to check the status of the new digital world. "How are we looking guys?"

"Stable access is a ways off," A-0 complained. "I want to get scans of whatever it is that they are doing to get in and out. It is definitely better than what we have."

"Give us a warning when it is stable, then send us," Shawn instructed simply. "We'll be ready when we hit."

\---

Alice landed in the next target, and immediately knew things had somehow gone worse than last time. Instead of being stuck between racks of storage containers they were at the edge of a warehouse by some loading docks. The same claw and sphere shaped constructs surrounded them, the latter quite clearly prepared for their arrival, along with new cone shaped machines taking cover behind the others.

"Appearance matches Team Upload infiltrators," one of the spheres said harshly cutting off the last hope that their target wasn't entirely prepared for the attack. She dropped the Dos case that she had carried into this world and allowed the swarm of simplistic Hackware to stream out around them.

"Contain until reinforcements arrive," another said extending its spikes. The three grunts with them readied their own pokeballs and sent out the combat team they had brought along. They were some of the longer time members, true Team Rocket survivors that in many ways considered 'Team Upload' to be a false name to hide the old organization's rebirth.

The two techs were more in the mindset of starting fresh, but the added muscle of their trained pokemon helped immensely. "Dos, intercept any attacks," Bob said clearly as he opened the second, more detailed, digital case he was carrying. Out of it emerged six large three dimensional claws. "Vir, counter any small units that attack," he ordered this next kind of Hackware, the evolution of the simple creatures that swarmed around them. As these prepared to intercept any incoming Loaders the three grunts sent out their pokemon. A Golbat, Weezing, and Murkrow appeared at the edges of the group, and the three airborne pokemon quickly began to attack the larger spheres gathering around them.

"Heavy resistance present. Requesting aid," one of the Guardians said as they did their best to dodge the newfound threats while warning off the pokemon with sparks of electricity and shot spines. For a minute they seemed to be winning, with the sphere shaped digital creatures falling back and occasionally dying. The smaller creatures had simply scattered, at most rushing to the closest shelves and grabbing the storage spheres before the Upload team could reach them.

"Vir, hit those small ones," Bob ordered as they finally reached the edge of the shelving units. "Stop them from getting more spheres away." The six larger Hackware units started to move forward, with a portion of the Dos mass accompanying them to continue their protective efforts. A bright flash then briefly appeared a good distance away past a small pile of obviously moved structural elements from the shelves. "Cancel, investigate possible threat," he corrected turning to face the strange occurrence.

"Something just locked down everything!" Alice shouted letting out their current Porygon. "Unit 3, find out who is doing it." The digital pokemon beeped agreeably to start, but then began a panicked series of sounds that attracted the attention of the other pokemon.

"Troubleshooters," one of the Guardians said then, just before a wave of glowing leaves washed over their group. The diffused attack left only small cuts on the pokemon, trainers, and Vir. However, the Dos swarm was devastated by the widespread storm.

"Team Upload I take it?" a human voice asked, and from behind the makeshift barricade the trainer emerged supported by three pokemon. One was the massive serpentine starter of a Serperior, the next a purple furred rabbit monster they did not recognize, and the third was a Porygon looking at them with contempt.

"Shit," one of the grunts said looking at the obviously well trained snake pokemon. "Golbat, keep it occupied."

"Now, now. I'm sure I can keep up with more than just one opponent," said serpent coldly replied before sending out a smaller wave of leaves, but one that was glowing more strongly. Beside him the rabbit breathed out a wave of dragon fire.

"Crabs, hit the interlopers," Bob ordered taking a large red digital cube from his belt. The item clinked against the floor twice before expanding outward into a four legged Hackware larger than the Vir. Those medium sized creatures were already sending small bolts of red energy at the new arrivals. Alice followed up the first cube with another on her own belt.

"Take the pokemon down first," the trainer ordered his team coldly as the leaves slashed into Golbat and Weezing. Both of the pokemon weathered the attack, but the last of the Dos covering them disintegrated under its force and one of the Vir within the line of fire shattered. Murkrow was unlucky enough to take the full force of the Dragon typed attack, and worse still was left with spasms and stiffness by the paralyzing side effects of the flames. This left the pokemon vulnerable to the many electrical attacks of the still nearby Guardian machines.

"Tell me we have more of those," Murkrow' grunt said returning his pokemon with clear worry. The first Crab Hackware then slammed the ground in front of itself, producing a large red wave that shot forward towards their foes. The rabbit monster vanished by digging under the solid floor, while the snake pokemon lifted itself in a smooth motion over most of the wave. "Tell me we can get out of here!" he corrected worried by the casual evasions.

"Unit 3?" Alice asked worried as the two crabs traded ground hugging blasts with the Serperior. The black and red Porygon gave a sad series of beeps, before turning to glare at its pink and blue counterpart. Weezing suddenly was enveloped in a blast of dragon fire from the ground below him, and slashed by the reappearance of the rabbit monster. Unit 3 then gave a more serious beep, and the Upload team began to glow a dull red.

"Alice, what is 3 doing?" Bob asked watching uneasily as the spherical defenders regrouped to aid the powerful pokemon that had arrived. Their own digital pokemon was now the only one not coated in the indicative color.

"Hopefully not what it looks like," she complained as Golbat weaved through another blast of leaves uneasily, failing to avoid a series of electrical bursts as a consequence. "Unit 3, we all need to get out of here."

\---

"Interdiction of transit is too strong," Shawn heard the enemy Porygon tell its trainer as the glow around their foes grew brighter. The trainer could see A-0 straining to stop that foe from breaking its own team out of the server before they were caught. "This is the best option available," it continued glaring angrily at them.

"Serperior, take out the big ones," Shawn instructed his starter pointing at one of the new 'Crab' digital life forms. The snake pokemon shot forward at the cold order, and quickly slashed the closest. The leader of the Upload invaders gave a cry of disbelief as the four legged construct split in half from the powerful Grass typed strike, and then shattered.

Before another followup could occur a bright red flash removed the invaders from the digital world, with the sole exception of the now exhausted Porygon. They clattering to the ground in the midst of the battlefield. "You should surrender now," A-0 commented to its counterpart, who simply vibrated angrily for a moment.

"Troubleshooters, you arrived quickly," a Guardian said relieved. "Can you explain what has happened? We found the notice regarding attacks making us," the creature stopped obviously lost for words. "Exist? We tried to hold them off, and then you arrived."

"Gazimon, can you give them the explanation?" Serperior asked moving back to the group. "I think you might be the one of us with the most skill at that."

"I apologize in advance if I slip up and start trying to extort you," the digimon told the Guardian dryly. "My last team was more in line with our attackers when it comes to morality."

"Let's see what we can do with you," A-0 said floating closer to the other Porygon opening a pane. "Oh. Shawn, we need to really have a talk with the development team about our standard features."

"Why is that?" the trainer asked. Instead of replying A-0 instead manipulated the data he had brought up, resulting in a pokeball with an 'R' logo on it falling down onto the exhausted foe. The ball revealed itself to belong to said Porygon as it returned him immediately, with the telling red energy color of a matched container. "Was that the grabber?"

"The thing we setup so Serperior's ball stays with him if you went back without him? Yes, it is," A-0 complained. "Which when combined with the corruption incarnation system interacting with these places tells me that all of our programs that operate on all of our Boxes are actually going after any digital worlds in DSS."

"Hopefully it is that limited," Serperior noted unhappily. "I'd hate for it to catch." He pointed to Gazimon. "Metaphysical side effects could go really badly."

The other two watched the naturally occurring digital creature interacting with the newly made artificial ones uneasily for a moment. "Right, we need to interrogate the dev team on how much of his data they are using to upgrade stuff," Shawn declared taking out the Pokedex. "Janice, Box." The trainer shook his head. "Sorry, server is secure, enemy Porygon captured, and we have lots of questions for the dev team."

"The Investigator is working on waking up," she replied over the communication connection. "Do you need some special equipment to hold the Porygon?"

"No, we don't. The pokeball grabber is working here," A-0 informed her grabbing the Team Rocket marked sphere. "We will probably just stick around long enough to get the locals started on securing and operating this place, then head back."

\---

"Having another of their elite hackers is the best news we've had since coming here," Investigator Roberts said with tired relief as they handed off the captured pokeball. "How bad was it?"

"Two new forms of Hackware. A medium sized kind that looked like a better quality version of the first kind, and an even larger pair that was about as strong as a typical pokemon," Serperior replied looking somewhat uneasy. "I'm not fond of using killer attacks that close to actual pokemon."

"I'm not fond of hearing you're using killer attacks," Jack said looking at the snake like it had turned into a horror. "I mean, these things were alive, right?"

"Do you want the bad news or the worse news?" Gazimon said darkly, seeming quite distracted since his discussion with the newly made digital life forms. Seeing everyone was paying attention he continued. "The bad news is that those things reminded me of myself before I got stuck here. Minions that you have so many of that you don't need to worry too much if some of them die." The various Troubleshooters looked uneasy at this statement, particularly Serperior and Shawn. "Which is what makes the worse news worse. We're still going to have to kill them."

"Why?" Quagsire asked wary of the digimon's statement. "If they are like you shouldn't that mean we can help them? I mean, the LAS and these new warehouse monsters are doing fine." Shawn's own face had turned thoughtful at the rabbit monster's statement.

"Because they are either loyal to the cause, or unable to escape without it killing them," Gazimon coldly answered. "The only reason I'm not in the second category is I ended up here instead of dead. Those things? Probably not able to make a choice about loyalty."

"In this world that isn't a reason to kill," Investigator Roberts argued looking somewhat disapproving. "I'm guessing there is more to it than that?"

"I think we're dealing with a rogue swarm," Grant added quietly. "Like a hive of Beedrill that have gone mad and started attacking a town. While you're dealing with them you can't afford to hold back all the time, not if you want to keep the people you are protecting safe." Quagsire paled at the mention of Beedrill.

"We still aren't strong enough to afford that again?" Dugtrio asked sadly. "Because I still have nightmares about that."

"The pokemon we can try and save, but we don't know how easy it is to make Hackware yet," Shawn said resigned. "They could have hundreds of those 'Crabs', or those could have been the only two. They could even be some nightmare combination of the evolution speed of a Bug type and the power jumps of Gazimon's kind. The Loaders are honestly looking like that themselves, so it isn't out of the question."

"They seem to be combiner evolution creatures," A-0 stated. "I think we should bring in LAS to go over the data I have, she was made for analyzing unknown creatures." It then created a pair of panes and held them in the air, obviously straining a bit to do so. "The medium sized ones seem to be a fusion of multiple smaller ones, and the largest kind was about three of the medium ones fused."

Metang looked over the creatures displayed, even floating closer to better see the small scrolling text of the scan results. "Swarm creatures, not fusion. What did destruction of portions do to the overall ability of the group?" they asked.

"The Dos became less focused as they decreased in number," Shawn replied looking over to Serperior.

"About half the 'Vir' started moving erratically when I killed one of them. There were only six of them to start," the snake pokemon added. "After I hit the one two of the others, the closest two now that I think of it, stopped moving right."

The Investigator looked through his files set on the newer digital desk they had created for his use. The item was on its second iteration, as the basic layout did not work well with his gear and changing it was more than possible. "How much harder is it to make these than to make a Porygon?" he asked looking at the group uneasily.

"There are three factors to that," A-0 answered. "First is if they have access to a digital world. Since they can make them somehow that is known." It then motioned towards the pad. "Second is how exactly they are getting in and out of one. We know at a minimum they don't need one of these to do it, which adds to their options." The Porygon then closed one of its panes and changed the data on the other. "The final question is how much power they are feeding into the transport method."

"The first place they ran to was a digital world," Josh contributed. "So they've had those first two for most of the time."

"Higher than normal power use was one of the ways we were trying to track their operations," Roberts added. "We didn't really know what exactly they were doing that caused it."

"If this Hackware can reproduce like corruption can, then all they need is power being fed into a digital world. Then the things can just grow new ones on their own," Janice said uneasily. "If the servers they are hitting with this method of attack are still running they could be getting them from there."

No one was very happy with that idea. Grant's team shifted uneasy at the prospect of better developed things like what they had been training to face. Shawn's team were still mostly caught up in the reality that this was going to result in the deaths of possibly thinking and definitely stable creatures. Janice, Metang, and A-0 were the most versed in the technical aspects of digital worlds that gave the real extent of such a threat. "I might be able to get permission to use your gear to check one of those sites out," Investigator Roberts noted somewhat unsure of the possibility. "I would also request your aid in identifying what we are looking for. We didn't even know they had things like these before, while you already seem to have a clear idea of how to deal with them."


	22. 2-04 Home Front

\--- Home Front ---

"Grant, Beta 40 has another outbreak if you're up for some practice," Janice called out to the assembled group while continuing her work on analyzing the footage the Inspector had produced regarding the past attacks. Going over the data available was giving a fair idea of how the storage systems were changed, but most of the Troubleshooter team had come to agree with A-0 that the system used to get information from inside of digital worlds simply wasn't up to the task. As a result any developments were waiting on Inspector Roberts getting permission to let them into a previously attacked site, or a new attack by Team Upload.

"Can you afford to have me in there too?" the trainer asked her wary as his team assembled to leave. Shawn's team was currently taking a break from the latest problem to work on Delta 6's plant development project. "What if something comes up?"

"Retrieval of primary team from Box is a trivial matter compared to time needed to align transport signal to new digital world," Metang answered, still drawing the attention of Roberts and Jack. The two new arrivals were not taking the reality of talking pokemon as easily as Grant had when he joined the team.

"You should be fine. She even said it was a smaller group of corruption than last time," Janice dryly replied turning to look at the group.

"How exactly does 'corruption' work?" Jack asked uneasy. "I know you called the digital creatures we recorded that, but what makes them corrupt?"

Janice turned to look at the Assistant Investigator thoughtfully. "Grant, new job. Take them with you and have Beta 40 explain. Jack's been to the League, so he should have solid pokemon, and if that's the kind of thing it takes to work under an Investigator then Roberts probably is just as well off," she instructed opening files to report the excursion properly.

"I think an explanation would work fine," Roberts started only for the Troubleshooter Lead to stop him with a shake of her head.

"Them getting in there for practice is time sensitive. Explaining it to you here would take too long, and I feel that seeing them would help with understanding what we're going to be up against," she replied. "Also it is a controlled way of getting you used to using the pad for when you need it to go after Upload."

"You're sure about this?" Kabutops asked making room on the pad. "I thought there were security concerns?"

"The biggest two Beta 40 has to deal with are her inhabitants and the storage issue. The former she's capable of handling when it comes to your team, and the Investigator is here about the latter," Janice replied. "Get down there and take care of the issue."

\---

The two new travelers remained entirely still during the loss of sight from the transfer, their bodies locking up despite being warned of the effect. Grant's team on the other hand began to use their other senses to check around them while the hazard passed, quickly identifying the space around them. The massive polygonal spider that was Beta 40 was waiting by the section of the Box that was being used as makeshift storage. What had previously been a simple stack of containers had expanded out into a series of towers spread over a good sized area.

"That looks a lot worse," Quagsire commented sadly as her team scanned for the direction of the containment building.

"Oh, yes. It is quite a bit worse," the Administrator said darkly. "Turns out they had a good reason to think a digital world was safer than a normal server." She threw her foremost pair of limbs into the air. "We have two entire worlds now that are just for storage, why do they still need to stick their stuff here?" She looked over the group critically as they started off towards the secure site. "Who are these two?"

"Investigator Roberts and his Assistant Jack," Grant supplied. "They are working on stopping Team Upload and wanted to get information on corruption."

"Jack huh? I have never really heard good things about Jacks," the Porygon said bluntly, then began to deliberately ignore the assistant. "Corruption is a side effect of a system we have in place to prevent any invasive programming from just randomly forming in the Box once it ends up inside. Before we got the system to turn it into separate things and creatures in place more often than not it just ended up in the Administrator Porygon, as in inside of me and my siblings."

"You're a Porygon?" Roberts asked with some confusion. "Were you made with Galvantula data as the base?"

"No?" she answered drawing out the word. "I'm a DSS Porygon, custom made for digital world management. All of us have the ability to reshape our bodies however we want. Being like this is mostly so it's easier to fight the results of that system I mentioned." The Investigator looked over the mostly accurate shape of her body looking unsure about this answer.

"Have they seemed more advanced lately?" Kabutops asked uneasily on seeing that they were nearly at the yellow building. "After seeing how sane the storage system's inhabitants are everybody is worried that the development team has 'improved' the system to make things more stable."

"Not in any way that couldn't also just be virus makers stepping up their game," she replied. "Which is the first thing to know about corruption. Like you asked about me, the base data it is made from determines how it turns out. How much do you know about creation errors in Porygon?"

"I have been working on going after this group since back when they were the part of Team Rocket that made Porygon," Investigator Roberts answered with some regret.

"Ah, thank you for helping with that then. A number of Porygon who work on the development team were saved from there," she said with some kindness. "If you dealt with that then you likely know how badly poor programming can cripple them." She tapped on the wall of the large cube. "A creature crippled like that is among the more stable corruption we have ever encountered," she finished darkly as the barrier began to lower into the ground.

"Right guys. Grant, keep on lookout for anything notable. Dugtrio, keep them in the pit this time. Kabutops, with me, light and wide," Quagsire ordered quickly getting nods of agreement from her team. Their two traveling companions turned to the trainer who simply followed the instructions without giving a translation of the pokemon's words.

This time there were only two kinds of digital constructs present in the structure. One was a fairly plain set of creatures and shards covered in what appeared to be eye spots. These were rather calmly observing everything, and mainly reacting to movement by the others in containment. The other kind was spiky green shards and creatures that attacked anything that entered a fairly small range of them. Shattering was already audible from the pit as the second kind of creature partially self destructed in their individual attempts to eliminate everything around them.

"Finish those ones first," Beta 40 said angrily indicating the green creatures. "If they somehow get more advanced they might realize how teamwork helps you kill things faster."

"How common are this kind?" Grant asked uneasily checking the pit for any creatures differing from the others.

"Those are what happens when the virus is made to damage and destroy the systems it infects. Now I'm going to have to report this to my contract holders," she said unhappily. "This almost guarantees that they have both spyware and attack programs in their systems."

"How hard is it to make those?" Roberts asked looking over the waves of water attacks and rising spikes of stone that were systematically shattering the digital life forms below.

"These things specifically? We probably could make hundreds right now if we went mad and decided to start killing ourselves," the Administrator replied harshly. "What it would do in a natural digital world is harder to say. Back in the old days it would be more like getting sick for us, typically with part of the Box going haywire as a side effect. Though like I said earlier, the programs involved get more advanced too. Those first ones we were hit with before Beta 16 died were mostly rogue bits of code from the development team or another one of us trying something risky."

"What about a purpose made one. Could you manage that?" the Investigator pressed. "Just something simple to do a small task, like using those eye things to keep track of things?"

"Alpha 30 is trying. Last I heard it was going fairly well, but the results were too fragile to actually use in practice," she answered unhappily. "However, if you're asking that question I have to think you don't really get what we are." She looked over the pit again, seeing that only a few hard to tell inanimate fragments of the green kind remained. The eyed corruption was also dying quickly. "Right, we're cutting it short again," she declared sending a wave of electricity down to clear out the rest. "I need to demonstrate what an Administrator Porygon is to the Investigator. Maybe that will start to tell him why his question was so badly worded."

"We're going to see you doing that to us a lot when we end up here to practice, aren't we?" Quagsire asked neutrally as they started moving to an empty spot away from the structure.

"The first thing you should know is why we exist," Beta 40 started. "DSS started the Box project with the goal of making digital worlds for pokemon storage. The very first problem we hit was that a digital world we created is either a formless space that its inhabitants can sorta manipulate, or effectively a sealed box with only what you put into it inside." She pointed around them to the various square buildings around them. "The second option was determined to be safer, which considering how that resulted in a limited amount of fresh air says a lot about how dangerous the first kind is."

She waved her foremost limbs across the open space, and a flat surface rose out of the ground. It quickly morphed into a simplistic polygonal monitor shape. "That is where my family comes into the picture. Porygon have greatly increased capabilities inside of a digital world." The monitor then turned on with a click to display an image of a pair of grey cubes. The first was a darker color and empty, and the second a lighter grey with a blue and pink dot in the center. "We are made to control the contents of the storage area, with the primary goal being 'atmospheric and climate control' to support the pokemon inside."

"Why do you have a monitor stored here?" Roberts asked with uneasy confusion.

The Administrator smiled at the question. "I don't. What we found out after the first Administrators were made is that our control over the Boxes also allows for making and changing anything within those digital worlds," she answered ominously. "'We are the lords and masters of our worlds, and like the kings of old we are the land we rule'," she said clearly quoting someone. She then sighed while creating a few chairs behind the group. "The price of that power is that we are bound to the Box we were made for. I will never see any world other than this one we are in right now, because in a real way it is a part of my body. You can't exactly take an entire world out into the real world after all."

"You can't leave, not at all?" Kabutops asked seriously. "I mean, they told us you need to stay to keep things running, but." He shook his large head. "I can't imagine never being able to see the actual sky."

"That doesn't sound a lot like the digital worlds I've seen so far," Investigator Roberts said looking over the chairs and screen. "Most of them are messes of terrain, with the best ones looking like abandoned storage buildings."

"Huh, that sounds more like a naturally occurring digital world. What were they made out of?" the Porygon asked looking at him thoughtfully.

"Active storage sites mostly," he confessed nervously. "Along with a couple of natural ones that Upload used to escape capture."

"That actually fits. No one is sure how natural digital worlds form, but they tend to end up a lot like the systems close to where they were discovered," Beta 40 said nodding and seeming much less upset over his earlier statement. "Which explains a bit of why you didn't realize what you asked me meant. When a program enters a digital world it is fairly often converted into a thing rather than just code." The monitor shifted to two sets of green squares clearly representing an open field. "The most common way this happens is it simply merging with part of the world. This will create terrain, mist, plant like constructs, or rarely independent creatures." One of the squares of the left hand field on the monitor changed to a red color.

"Didn't you say that this world was part of your body?" Grant asked suddenly, now quite worried by the way the conversation was going. "Wouldn't that mean-" He cut himself off. "You already said before it ended up inside of you," he whispered realizing the context.

"Exactly. For a DSS Box they would merge with the world and as a result get inside of the Administrator too," she replied with a sad smile. "For the longest time we treated it as just getting sick. Then Beta 16 was hit by one of the first modern adware viruses, and my brother died from it."

"It killed him?" Jack asked as his face paled.

"It destroyed his mind and tried to use his body to spread itself," she answered shortly then moved on quickly. "After that we set up the incarnation system. It takes anything that comes into our Boxes and specifically changes it into a separate creature." The right hand field then had a small red triangle appear inside of the matching green square. "This changed the results from being like us getting sick to something like becoming infested with parasites."

"And while parasites can still kill you, they are easier to deal with than sickness," Kabutops realized out loud looking back towards the containment building.

"Parasites like little things living on top of you? Wouldn't that be the same as the pokemon who live here?" Quagsire asked somewhat jokingly.

"Is a bird pokemon living in a Torterra's tree a parasite?" the Porygon asked with a laugh. "We are made to protect and help them. That honestly is the biggest problem with corruption, they try to do their jobs even though they are alive now. To make a stable one you'd need to give it a purpose that still works when it becomes alive." She sighed heavily. "I'm still in an argument with Alpha 30 about his trying to do just that. I just know Shawn is going to end up having to solve that sometime soon."

"So Shawn has been working with you guys for a while then?" Jack asked uneasily. "I guess I can't really imagine him staying in one place all the time. He always was more interested in the strange things that were out in the world."

"Have you met him before?" the Administrator asked strongly.

"We grew up together," the trainer confessed reluctantly. "Were, sort of friends. Until I ended up, on something of a different path," he said carefully choosing his words.

For just an instant the sky flashed black, and there was the slight smell of ozone in the air.

"I'll warn you now, both to make you aware going forward and to ensure you cannot say you did not know," the spider pokemon said darkly. "We gossip all the time about what little we know of the outside world. Shawn is our best source of such things." She turned to face Jack, restrained malice obvious in every movement. "By the time he missed his own League entirely he had done so much for my family that we cannot hope to repay. Significant things that needed to be done and saved many of us from corruption." A crackle of electricity swept over her frame. "If you are who I'm quite sure you are, then you lost the respect of all of us that day." The phrasing was tame, but the tone implied a far worse situation.

"Grant, find a way to get us out of here," Quagsire hissed quietly at her trainer well aware that the Investigators did not understand her.

"We're going to have to keep them out of the Boxes, aren't we?" Dugtrio asked exasperated.

"Perhaps we should call this a day?" Kabutops cut in as Grant looked uneasily at Jack. "That was a rather thorough explanation of corruption-" The pokemon's attempt to defuse the situation was interrupted by a crash from the storage piles.

Beta 40 was on her feet in an instant and quickly moving to the source of the sound, leaving the rest of the group to catch up as they realized what had happened. They soon came across a number of boxes fallen to the ground, two open revealing a number of paper files within. In the middle of the containers was a Raichu nursing their leg and close to crying. "Dammit, I messed up the pile," the pokemon said sadly while looking over the markings on the sides of the packages. "This, this is the wrong shape," the small rodent said losing its battle against tears. "I messed up the pile and I didn't even find the right shape."

"Rolly, are you okay?" the Administrator asked looking over the pokemon while the others caught up.

The mouse pokemon was now fully crying. "I messed up. My trainer asked me to get the box with the three lines and the circle, or in the circle, or-" The pokemon curled slightly inwards. "I know what it looks like but I don't know how to describe it," they continued sadly waving their arms.

"What's wrong?" Investigator Roberts asked as they caught up.

"Another mess from this storage nightmare. You all should head back now," she replied to the human somewhat harshly. "Just get onto the pad and I'll send you back. Rolly, I'll help you put these back and find the one you're after when I'm done with this group, okay?" The pokemon nodded weakly in response.

\---

The first thing the group saw after their eyes cleared from the transfer was Shawn holding a small handful of colorful polygonal items. "Have a good time striking back against the forces of overzealous marketing?" Serperior joked from the trainer's shoulder.

"What's with the faces?" Gazimon asked from nearby while dubiously looking at another digital item, this one black in color. "They weren't stable this time were they?"

"Gazimon, the color is just a side effect of your nature. The berry is otherwise fine," A-0 muttered to the digimon.

"The training went fine," Grant said thoughtfully. "Her storage situation on the other hand is even more out of control."

"They are still letting her client put stuff in the Box?" Janice asked with some disbelief. "I'm going to have to have a word with somebody about this."

"Don't bother," A-0 said angrily. "I doubt it would help that much given the current issues. I saw a thread on the internal forums where a couple of my other siblings suspected their Boxes were being prepared for the same kind of thing."

"That was mostly rumor," Serperior tried to reassure the Porygon. "The real risk right now is somebody deciding to make a bunch of warehouse digital worlds that we'd need to start serpervising."

"What exactly are they doing in there?" Jack asked quietly. "I've never heard of having pokemon deal with piles of office supplies."

"The contract holder for that Box is worried about Upload going after their own storage system, so they decided to store things inside the Box using their pokemon to put them in and take them out," Grant answered sadly. "It didn't look anywhere near that bad last time."

"Is there anything that can be done to help with that issue?" Investigator Roberts asked with some concern. "At least until we track down and stop Team Upload?"

"How bad are we talking about?" Shawn asked looking towards Quagsire.

"There is at least a dozen new piles of stuff, most of them a bit bigger than that first one," she replied after a moment spent realizing that Grant was waiting on her. "We spotted a Raichu that seemed to be having troubling finding something before the Porygon kicked us out of there."

"That is rather significant," Shawn said with wide eyes before turning to his starter.

"Well, we could always ask the new guys if they could help," Gazimon suggested still looking over his small berry. "I mean we have a bunch of mons that already manage storage stuff, why not just bring a few of them over to help out?"

"I say Gazimon is now our digital world idea guy," Serperior replied seriously. "I mean, saying like that kinda makes sense given he's from some overly advanced natural one, but still, constant good ideas."

"I just think of the bluntest fix to the current problem and say it," the digimon complained while looking over at the snake in confusion.

"I'll have to make a call first, but we should be able to at least ask," Janice told the group getting a phone application running on her station. "Also keep in mind that Beta 40 has a say in this too."

"Hello? Oh, Janice. What can I do for you?" the storage manager who had interacted with Manifest 8-00 during the meeting answered the call.

"Manager Urn, I have a request to make regarding the new warehouse digital life forms. We might have a task that would benefit from their aid," the Troubleshooter Lead informed the current manager of the two altered Bulk Item Servers.

"Ah, I see. Well," Manager Urn stumbled for a moment. "I have sort of been restricted from directly involving myself with their operations. I have been clearly told that my job is only to make sure the two sites function properly. The Manifest units themselves are in charge of the internal workings. While I can ask to have changes made in overall function, any requests regarding the other inhabitants are to go through them instead. I have also been restricted from making any request relating to any of the materials they use for storing the items."

"Are you telling me that I could have just called the Manifests first?" Janice asked dryly.

"Basically," the manager confessed with embarrassment.

"Goodbye Manager Urn," she replied closing the call. "I think I know who everyone is worried about making a bunch of digital storage warehouses now," she said to the room at large before turning to look at Metang. "Can you get the three Manifest units on the communicator? I want a conference call for this."

The process took a short time to set up. "Hello?" the voice of Manifest 4-00 said over the comm system first. "Is this the Troubleshooters? I don't really need more problems right now." The latest management digital life form was not taking being alive very well.

"You aren't going to have me take over for them are you?" Manifest 8-01 said gruffly. "Because I have my own projects right now to handle."

"M8-01, for that issue the Troubleshooters would at best respond that they had a clear way of evolving a new unit of our type," Manifest 8-00 replied somewhat tiredly. "What is the situation?"

"Porygon Beta 40 has been dealing with her contract holder attempting to use her Box as an item storage site," Shawn replied to the final question. "With the threat of Team Upload ongoing upper management is allowing this to progress. Gazimon has suggested that we temporarily move some Loaders into the Box to aid in storage operations to take stress off her and her inhabitants."

"She is already dealing with an increased rate of corruption outbreaks, so fewer other problems would be greatly appreciated," Serperior added.

"I'm still getting things together with my units," M4-00 said unhappy with the request. "Manager Urn wants us to maintain prior functionality if not better, and I cannot afford to spare any at this time." There was then a click indicating a disconnection.

"One of my projects is finding out how I evolved so we can replace them with someone who's not me," M8-01 commented dryly. "What do you mean by 'increased rate of corruption'?" it then asked seriously.

"You have gone over containment procedures, correct?" A-0 asked with concern. "My sister is connected to a site which is allowing for more viruses and other hazards than is normal to get through the transfer system. Given that you work with products of various kinds I would think you would have at least started preparing for adware issues as well."

"You want to know if we can spare some help for her?" M8-00 questioned seriously.

"If Loaders are able to manage simply sorting a relatively small amount of stuff themselves then we only need a couple to relieve some of her stress," Shawn explained.

"What about Guardians? Could she use a couple of them to help with dealing with these corruption?" M8-01 offered. "Maybe see about getting some better information on how they should fight?"

"We have a few extra units, and for Loaders we'd probably have to either make brand new ones or more likely hold a lottery regarding who gets to go," M8-00 agreed. "Seeing the worlds outside of this one is a unique experience that I have unfortunately spoken too highly of."

"Can we set up a way to rotate them in and out? That way plenty of them have the chance to participate, and the Guardians can use it as combat practice. Not to mention they all look alike so the locals won't easily be able to tell it is happening," Dugtrio proposed, earning suspicion from their teammates in the form of carefully checking the coloration of the three domes. The pokemon seemed pleased with this reaction.

"I'm starting to think that the 'saying parts of their name' thing was just an easy way to mess with us," Grant commented looking dubiously at his pure Ground type. "Now that it doesn't work for them anymore they must be trying to be tricky." Quagsire simply spread herself flat against the floor and gave an exasperated sigh in response to her two teammates.

"Is there an easy way to learn to speak pokemon?" Jack muttered with a bit of confusion himself.

"Given how mad Beta 40 was at you, I do not want to see what Delta 2 would even attempt if you asked for that," Kabutops replied quietly. "Grant just ended up switching bodies with me for a few days."

"A rotation would work well if Beta 40 is willing to put up with one," M8-01 replied to the topic at hand. "Should we simply include her in this discussion?"

"Safety of the items themselves should be a concern as well," Loader 8-8F cut in, apparently having been near one of the Manifests. "We have already located the devices to make new shelving units and storage spheres. Taking a setup along with anyone who goes over would probably save them some space in their Box."

"I can connect with Beta 40 if needed," Metang noted as the others agreed with the Loader.

"We should do this face to face," Shawn said thoughtfully. "Beta 40 is having a hard time already, I would rather be there for her to speak with instead of just calling her up."

\---

"Shawn, it is good to see you again," the spider shaped Administrator said tiredly after they returned to her Box. "Is this about that 'Team Upload'?" she asked pointing to Investigator Roberts and deliberately ignoring his assistant.

"Wow, this is worse than I thought," Serperior commented looking at the piles of boxes. "When we started discussing ways to help with this mess I didn't even suspect it was this disorganized."

"'Help'? Did you find some room I can shove this stuff in one of the new item Box places?" she questioned with some sarcasm.

"The opposite actually," Shawn replied. "The digital management of Bulk Item Server 8 are willing to lend you some of their personnel to manage this mess instead of putting that on your inhabitants."

"And what exactly will they need from me to 'manage' this mess?" the Porygon asked dubiously.

"We can contact them to send over the group," A-0 suggested. "They should have digital world to digital world transfers figured out from sending stuff between the two new worlds, and we can work out what they would need better with them here. If things don't work out we can just send them back."

"Alright," she said after looking at the serious face of her sibling for a moment. "What do they need to get it here?"

Shawn responded by opening a communication link using the Pokedex and having a brief conversation with the Shipper being involved in the process. "Right, it should work just like designating an arrival location for item transfer. Actually we might be able to use your current restrictions to handle this side of things," he told the Administrator.

Soon afterward there was a small pile of disassembled shelving units, five Loader digital life forms, and three Guardians present in the Box. The Loaders were looking at the mess of a storage area present with a mixture of horror and sympathy, while the Guardians were looking at the Galvantula shaped pokemon with a bit of hero worship. "Box Administrator Beta 40, we have arrived in the hopes of supporting your operations," one of them said floating forward, obviously trying to impress her. "The Loader units are ready to setup a temporary storage site, and myself and my fellow Guardians are hoping to learn from you experience while aiding in the defense of this world."

"Guardians? Combat life forms?" the Porygon asked her sibling with a hint of humor. "You should have mentioned that they also wanted to help with the corruption." She looked over the two kinds of creature that had arrived. "Alright, let's start with the problem I dislike more. What did you bring with you?" she asked pointing at the pile of prefabricated components.

"We have four standard shelving units, a four slot charging station that can handle either Loaders or Guardians, and fifty storage spheres," Loader 8-8F said from the far end of the group of smaller machines. "We also found a transport case design that holds twenty five spheres at a time. We were going to be using two of those to stores the spheres until they are needed, but it looks like we are will need more than that."

"How much space will that take?" Beta 40 asked thoughtfully starting a brief conversation between her and the claw like creature.

The two of them then proceeded to recruit the Troubleshooters into helping setup the various structures next to the current storage piles. After the first was assembled the Administrator then decided to create a new cubic building around the new site for the warehouse digital life forms to use. The warehouse creatures and Investigators found the sight of the structure simply forming from nothing around them quite impressive. "Right, this should give you space to use your stuff. I can get this thing connected to my energy grid easily enough as well," she said as they finished assembling the charging station. "Is there anything else you would need to do this?"

"How exactly does the current process work?" L8-8F asked, apparently having been made leader of his small group due giving his suggestion. "I'm not sure how you want to tie us into the transfer processes of your Box."

"We don't have authorization to setup direct item transfer anyway," Shawn cautioned the group. "The goal is to work with their current 'process'."

"Each thing they send in gets a symbol printed on the side," Beta 40 explained. "When they want something back they tell the pokemon they send what symbol they want them to get."

There was a pause as the warehouse machines waited for more explanation. "Guys, that's it," Serperior said to break the silence.

"Seems simple enough to me," Gazimon said watching the clear looks of disbelief given by the digital life forms. "All you need is to ask what symbol they are after and get that stuff to them."

"I had a pokemon just earlier today who couldn't actually explain the symbol they were after," the Administrator corrected looking over at Roberts and Jack. "But maybe some kind of screen that shows all the symbols currently stored could work. Give me a second to make one." Soon after there was an angled screen setup next to the main door of the new structure.

"Alright then, thank you all for your help, but I also think that you have better things to be working on that fixing issues that are just stressing me out," she then continued slyly. "Like maybe the root cause of those things?"

"At this point I'm waiting to hear back from the last few sites that were attacked before you," Investigator Roberts replied. "Until that happens any information on what exactly can be done with digital worlds and custom Porygon is actually rather valuable to figuring out the limits of what we're up against."

The rest of the group looked at him considering. "Alright, in that case I'll have you stick around for these three going through what they are capable of with me," Beta 40 replied pointing at the Guardians.


	23. 2-05 Fragmented Worlds

\--- Fragmented Worlds ---

"Alright everyone good news, my superiors have now stepped in on things," Investigator Roberts informed the Troubleshooter teams as he arrived in their Lab for another day of work. "Apparently my report on the corruption I saw with your Administrator had an impact. They now want me to confirm the source of the Hackware to make sure that they cannot be used on systems that haven't been converted to digital worlds." He removed a small notepad from a pocket in his coat. "We have access to the last three systems that were hit before yours to look over for clues."

"That's a department store, a police storage site, and a pokecenter's local storage system," Jack told the others thoughtfully. "I didn't think you'd get the first one, Rob."

"If it is the store I'm thinking of then they probably heard you were working with us," Janice said to the pair. "We have a Box, number 55, where a store's security pokemon spend their free time. They are one of a growing number of places that are apparently asking about digital world storage now."

"That might have been mentioned as a reason," the Investigator admitted. "They might also have asked to get some of their pokemon out of storage to take a look at the results when we go into that one."

"That makes it sound less like having us do digital world storage for them, and more like having us clean out the place so they can set something up themselves," Shawn told the group.

"We can hold off on that one until we go over what exactly they are after with them. I don't want to start with the hassle of working out who to get from Beta 5," A-0 declared. "Is there anything notable about the other two sites?"

"The Pokemon Center's storage system was really small. I think they were trying for a pokemon storage system," Jack answered. "The place actually uses an attached ranch to handle any need to keep pokemon there instead, so there wasn't one to attack."

"We don't know for sure yet that it was a mistake," Investigator Roberts cautioned. "I was already planning on going to the police site first. They were hit after getting a number of items relating to the case transferred into their storage system."

"How many of those were tracking devices?" Gazimon asked slyly.

"None have remained operational, so we also want to check to see if there is any evidence of how they got around them," Roberts told the digimon. "I'm also hoping that some of the monitoring programs were converted into something we can get information out of during the attack."

"Should we bring LAS along?" Grant asked somewhat unsure of how to help with this project. "Her sensor systems are some of our best." His team shuffled uneasily at the suggestion while the Investigators looked curious. The digital life form had not been brought in to meet them yet, having been busy helping the development team deal with the new warehouse ecosystems.

"We might want her on hand, but considering how we don't know what threats there are in these locations it is probably best to not risk her right off the bat," Janice told the trainer. "Shawn's got the Pokedex and A-0 should have sufficient capabilities to at least figure out the basics."

"We will need some specific information on our target location," Metang informed the Investigator. "Then some time to configure our transfer system."

"How is the analysis of the Hackware data you gathered going?" Jack asked the group, looking to Janice for an answer while Roberts provided the needed information.

"Dos and Vir are Baby and In Training creatures respectively with the Viral attribute," Gazimon answered instead. "They are both somewhere between being one creature with a lot of bodies and a bunch of creatures which are linked together." He opened one of his own black panes and grabbed it carefully to hold. "No type data for either of them, and when it comes to attacks they actually are more like digimon. The Dos can energize their bodies to cut through targets, the Vir can then fire that energy out as a ranged attack, and the Crab was able to change it into a larger wave of energy." He then looked over to A-0 hopefully.

"Crabs are Dark typed, and fall into what Gazimon calls the 'Rookie' evolutionary stage. That covers the level range of most combat pokemon you find, wild or otherwise," A-0 said nodding happily at the rabbit monster, and causing the Troubleshooters to look at Shawn to double check its statement regarding wild pokemon. The trainer nodded to indicate the information was accurate. "If they are like pokemon then that should be the end of it, but we cannot be sure of that. There could possibly be a higher stage, which would be in the level range for League ready pokemon."

"Uh, what?" Jack asked disbelievingly. "You can't just go straight to a League level pokemon just by evolving. Even Legendary pokemon need to practice to reach that point."

"We've seen it happen to a digital life form before," Serperior said bluntly. "So it definitely is an option. I doubt they have any right now though, one of those along with their actual pokemon would have made a third attack possibly successful."

"Their physical structure is actually a bit more resilient than typical corruption, particularly the Crabs. Serperior's Leaf Blade would probably have been a mortal blow to even a mid level pokemon," Shawn added. "If they can deploy a good number of those at a time we might be in some trouble taking them out."

"Which is the big reason why I personally want to know how they reproduce," Gazimon told the group. "Serperior can take out a good number of those things, the rest of us can't. We also can't count on them giving up like the pokemon. The way they use Dos at least shows they are somewhat disposable, and how far that goes determines how much firepower we need to take them on."

"Site has been located, connecting now," Metang informed the group. "We are ready for transport whenever you are." The group traveling to the old crime scene gathered on the pad, with both Serperior and Gazimon entering their pokeballs to allow all three humans and the one Porygon to fit.

\---

They arrived on what seemed to be an asphalt road all around the edge of an overgrown plot of land. In the center of the area they could see a rotted out boxy storage building, the large structure heavily weathered. The outer edge of the road simply ended, leaving an endless void around the location. Shawn quickly let out his two teammates to watch for any possible enemies, in particular looking at the oddly mobile plants that filled the area past the blacktop.

"There was not that many of those plants when we looked over this place," Jack uneasily told the group letting out his own pokemon, a Flygon.

"Uh, is that Strangle? Only male. Oh shit that's Slasher," the pokemon said having spotted Serperior and growing increasingly worried as his statement progressed.

"What is he freaking out about now?" Investigator Robert's Salamence asked as she emerged from her own ball.

"The fact that his trainer used to be my rival," Shawn easily answered the pokemon before deliberately blinking his red slit eyes.

"Stay focused, we don't know what's here yet," A-0 warned the group. "What do you already know about those things?" it then asked the Investigator.

"Not a whole lot actually. We know they are some part of the old system, but I have no idea how to even tell anything else," Roberts answered. "Teaching us that is a big way you can help."

"Look like a security system to me," Gazimon commented. "The plants fight off anything that arrives, and if any are taken out that alerts whoever is inside. There should be bigger things inside that come out when that happens."

"How would someone who is supposed to be here get in?" Serperior asked looking critically at the plant digital life forms. "These things are already looking at us as targets."

"In my world there would be basically two ways. The first is that they would simply recognize anyone who is supposed to be there," Gazimon said ticking off one of his claws. "The second is to just shoot the way through them, because the kind of guy that uses reproducing defenses is strong enough to just go through them."

"Let me guess, anything else would require them to be smart enough to talk?" Shawn asked looking over the creatures.

"And they would have already started asking us questions," Gazimon confirmed. "Honestly these two should probably know of most of the things that can talk in these places. I mean, I don't think that scanner was so bad that it didn't pick up sound."

"A few can ask some garbled questions," Jack confessed. "Nothing we saw in this server though."

"Just to be clear, the other pokemon are talking right? To the humans?" the Flygon asked the group, getting surprised looks from his trainer and the Investigator.

"Vibration just spoke," Jack whispered in confusion.

"All of us are talking now," A-0 said to the Ground/Dragon. "I want to avoid repeating any little insights that are said by someone who isn't understood by someone else."

"In that case I have to ask why we're worried about messing up these plant things?" Salamence asked joining in the inspection. "They are barely monster plants. Just some abnormal really mobile plants."

"Mostly to check everything we can outside before setting any possible traps off," Shawn answered looking carefully at the area they arrived. "I can see the remains of a path, but I think any restrictions on these things to keep off it broke."

Gazimon hopped over to look at the spot his trainer had indicated. "Were broken. There's battle damage along the edges a bit of the way up," the digimon clarified pointing into the mass of plants. "Looks like it was an energy gate of some kind. Probably was the smart part of these outer defenses." He then opened one of his black panes and began to scan the location, soon joined by A-0.

"It also had the limiting system for these plant drones," the Porygon said uneasily. "I might be able to fix that part so we could clear them out more permanently."

"Do it," Shawn said looking over the building itself. "That department store probably isn't the only place looking to keep using these new spaces, and getting these things under control might make it less time consuming after the fact to restore the whole place to full use." The digital pokemon nodded and then after a moment the path flashed pink. The plants then shuffled off the concrete path quickly and calmly.

"We shouldn't need to clear them out yet," Gazimon said with some melancholy. "I doubt that Upload bothered with anywhere else out here unless it was storing something."

They quickly made their way into the building after that statement, revealing it to be the same broken facility from the Investigator's presentation. A trio of the same misshapen remnants of some system spotted them, then after a moment of looking over the many monsters present fled to hide among the ruined crates.

"Why are we worried about some baby monster things?" Salamence asked the group unnerved. "Please tell me we aren't fighting babies."

"Only rabid or swarming ones," Serperior replied sadly. "Neither of which these are, but I'm willing to bet there were more when Upload broke in."

"Slasher is a lot scarier in person," Vibration said to himself uneasily. "So what are we looking for exactly?" he then asked more loudly. The room was full of decaying digital materials and covered in markings from a fight.

"Two things are our priority," Shawn replied taking out the Pokedex to scan the room along with the two digital Troubleshooters. "First is their exit location, as a scan of that might let us find out where they went with the stuff they stole from here. Second is anything they left behind, either deliberately or by accident."

"In particular we are looking for the tracking devices that were supposed to be taken if something like this happened," Investigator Roberts said looking somewhat lost as to how to aid in the search.

"Tracking not possible," one of the hidden creatures stated mechanically in a highly distorted voice. "Attempts resulted in destruction of other units." It then cautiously hovered out to look over the group. "Re-entry into casings was a failure, resulting in their destruction," it continued sadly.

"Okay, I think we might need to bring in LAS now," Gazimon said looking uneasily at the digital life form. "Because she can probably explain it to them better than the rest of us."

\---

The large jellyfish creature found that her appearance was somewhat unusual to the investigators when she arrived. "New life forms require analysis?" she asked somewhat nervous at the stares from the four. So far their first meeting was not going smoothly.

"They were tracking devices before," Gazimon told her while checking the small outlets at the base of the walls. "I'm hoping you know how to help them with not being that anymore." He frowned and poked at the discolored edge of a cover.

The incarnated analysis software looked over the three creatures dubiously. "They are not at all 'that' anymore. Data corruption is far greater than inside of Boxes," she commented sympathetically. "Their code is a bit unstable," she added idly, earning sad looks from the Troubleshooters. "The devices they came from were likely much more tightly linked to their functionality than my own source unit was."

The casual mention of her nature brought more stares from the Investigators and their pokemon, but the Troubleshooters were able to catch the real meaning. The hidden statement that the creatures were slowly dying from the loss of connection to their devices only served to turn the entire atmosphere of the area grim.

"We might be able to have Delta 2 look them over," A-0 said with false confidence. "While we work on that maybe you can help us scan this location to try and determine where Team Upload went after they left?"

"I should be able to do so," she replied relieved by the change in topic. "Is there anything else I should be searching for?"

"We were also hoping to find out how Hackware reproduced," Serperior said trying to sound like it was a joke. "Have you had any luck with figuring that out about your kind?" he continued in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"Unfortunately we have. The process is parasitic in nature," the LAS said sadly, completely killing the attempt at levity.

"How bad are we talking here?" A-0 asked calmly.

"I have disabled my Analyzers' ability to draw energy from their victims," she replied with a sigh. "That is the first part of the process." Unlike her other explanations there was no display on her surface of the topic. "Once a victim is drained sufficiently the drone is then able to merge its energy system and then its body with the target. They are then converted into a new LAS."

"Yikes, the things eat a pokemon to make a bigger jellyfish monster?" Gazimon asked uneasily.

"Negative, current analysis shows that the end result would use the target pokemon's form as a base," the LAS replied shaking her body side to side. "The body would develop a number of Analyzer creation structures, between four and ten, along with two to four tendrils like my own. In order to accommodate these changes the size of the victim would also be increased. A change that is possibly not physically present would be the formation of an advanced sensor array. Overall the final form would greatly resemble the original body of the victim."

"So, its like the mushroom on a Paras?" Jack asked obviously fishing for a way to make the new topic less horrifying. "It latches on and then uses the pokemon's body as its own?"

The questions actually resulted in the LAS looking thoughtful, and her surface briefly flashing with data from a number of sources on the Bug/Grass pokemon. "No, the majority of Paras are totally controlled by the mind of the mushroom after evolution, with only a minority having the insect in control at that point or a clear merger of multiple minds. There are some cases where there is never an insect mind to begin with that actually fit better, as Analyzer units have no mental capacity of their own." Her surface settled on an image of a dull eyed bug itching at a mushroom that dominated its back. "The contact and control of the drone by the creator LAS is lost at the start of the conversion process, and the only mind available to control the resulting creature is taken from the victim," she clarified considering the distinction. "I had not considered how this differed from that category of pokemon. The victim would likely only have a relatively brief period of time during the process where they were not effectively the one controlling their body, that would end upon the completion of the process giving them control again."

"Wait, so they are still basically the same shape, and they still have the same brain?" Gazimon asked disbelievingly. "That doesn't sound like having a parasite, that sounds like someone evolving you." He then turned to Jack somewhat angrily. "Also now I'm never eating mushrooms again thanks to that little comparison. I did not need to know those 'Paras' mushrooms existed."

"That does sound less unpleasant given the comparison," A-0 told the digital life form. "I still would not do it to anyone who didn't very clearly volunteer, and even then only if they really understood the results."

"That is why I have disabled the prerequisite abilities in my drones," the LAS replied. "My team is also aware of the issue. It is causing some concern at the moment," she added deflating notably.

"Let's have a look around," Shawn said changing the subject. The group began to search the area in mostly silence, with the three former tracking devices attempting to join in as well. They ended up sorting and stacking the various broken crates and items around the room to better identify what exactly had been present and where things had happened, making sure to note where they moved things from.

\---

"Uh, I found a glowing red thing," Vibration said uneasily from a small attached room he had been checking. "It looks kinda like a part of a Porygon?" This statement quickly attracted the rest of the group.

"Data structure is consistent with Hackware," A-0 said cautiously. "It looks too deleibrate to be a shard." The device was attached to the location of an outlet in the wall of the small room. It was a good sized mostly square structure with angled polygons cutting three of the upper edges preventing it from being a true cube, the square edge against the wall.

"Device is a remote charging system. Area of effect does not cover the entire room," the LAS added waving her tendrils around it without touching the surfaces. "Energy transfer requires specific data structures in the recipient. Given the limited interactions seen between Hackware this could support a significant number as long as they clustered in around it."

"Limited interactions?" Gazimon asked looking at the device uneasily.

"They can move through each other's bodies," Serperior replied thoughtfully. "They did it to get out of their storage cases, and I'm sure I saw the Dos go through both of the other kinds to intercept attacks."

"It is able to produce Dos units," the massive jellyfish suddenly added seriously. "The functionality is considerably different than the reproduction that is exhibited by shards. It also appears to be a controlled process that operates instead of the energy distribution function rather than alongside it."

"If this can make more why aren't they using it? Something like that at least should have been taken with them if it wasn't going to be used here, right?" Jack asked as his pokemon practically hid behind him from the serious look on the snake twins.

"They made it here didn't they?" Investigator Roberts asked looking at the door to the room. "It wasn't something they brought with them, but instead a thing to use after they secured the place to feed their Hackware."

"My scans agree with that assessment. The device is not merely plugged into the outlet, it was made by corrupting the existing power infrastructure," the LAS agreed. "I can confirm that it is also able to preform some basic monitoring tasks, but if the device has any data transfer ability it is too highly masked for me to determine the presence of it."

"Smash it now or just before we leave?" Shawn asked looking it over somewhat annoyed. "We can't let them just come back and turn it on, and if it records data we want to limit how easily they can access that information."

"Do you have a detailed scan for us to analyze further?" A-0 asked the digital life form. The LAS flashed data on the object across her surface for a moment before nodding and creating a single Analyzer drone.

"It has very little damage resistance," she commented bringing the drone to rest just next to the device. "However, a sufficiently scrambled electrical attack will impede the few transmission and recording systems I can detect." The smaller dome exploded in a burst of data fragments and electricity that shattered the Hackware charger. "I have also identified three other outlets that with this information clearly had attempts to convert them. The failure seems to be due to a less direct connection to the main power system of this server."

"The sensors you're using to learn this stuff," Salamence asked looking at the results of the small explosion. "A pokemon that you converted would get them, right?" she asked looking towards the Legendary Analysis System.

The dome shaped digital life form turned to look at the Dragon/Flying type. She was clearly angered by the implication of the question. "That would be one of the definite effects of the infestation process," she replied emphasizing the word 'infestation' harshly. "The other topics we covered are less clearly understood, including how much of the victim's mind survives. Personally alterations are quite possible."

The Investigator's pokemon simply met her gaze. "Salamence, what exactly do you mean?" her trainer asked seriously.

"Most of the time while you're working you are looking at stuff. Trying to find information," she replied stoically, then realizing that he could understand her for the time being continued more strongly. "I want to be able to help you with that. To make it so you don't need to complain as much about what kinds of gear you don't have."

"This is not a simple request," the LAS replied angrily. "I do not want to kill you due to our ignorance. I am the first of my kind to ever exist, there has been no other, no attempts at this before, and no creature has been the subject of this form of alteration before and survived." For an instant a number of brief images flashed across her surface, too quickly for most of those present to even attempt to make them out. They seemed to be the result of a momentary loss of control. "I will need significant confirmation that the process is even theoretically safe before I will consider testing it, let alone using it on someone."

"LAS, she doesn't know about corruption yet," Shawn cautioned. "We are just meeting her, and I don't think her trainer has had time to explain what happens to victims."

"Actually, I think I agree with the anger," Vibration noted. "I mean, I understand not being able to fight all the problems anymore. That's why most of my team broke up." Jack flinched at the statement. "That doesn't mean we should just jump at any chance to be able to fix the problems we have now. Chances can easily be more dangerous than their problems."

"Salamence," Roberts started moving to rest his hand on the dragon's head. "You already help me a lot. I can still find the information myself, and while we might have trouble getting the gear we need it isn't bad enough to risk ourselves to do a bit better."

"She can do all the things we need to do here on her own," the large quadruped complained softly. "And if I was like her then we wouldn't have even needed to wait to clear the place out before doing that stuff."

"But we don't know that it would work," the Investigator told his pokemon. "She's worried about the fact that she can even do it." He then began to softly question her.

A-0 also maneuvered the others away from the pair so they could quietly discuss the issue without anyone in the way. "Your team broke up?" A-0 asked the Flygon to justify the move.

"Strangle was the first," Vibration admitted. "That kinda shook all of us." He looked uneasily at his trainer. "She was the one who was the most interested in all of us sticking together, but we also heard her trying to get you to talk to Slasher and his trainer. After she left some of the others just wanted to make it to the League and be done."

"I thought she was upset with the rest of the team just being with us?" Jack questioned uneasily.

"Huh? What do you mean?" his pokemon asked clearly confused. "Heck, she's the one who caught me." The Ground/Dragon looked a bit embarrassed. "I mean, you threw the first two pokeballs, but that third one she practically shoved me in."

"That sounds like her," Shawn and Serperior agreed nodding as one. "She must have liked the look of you," they continued still matching each other.

"I want to meet your sister," Gazimon said dryly to the pair. "Mostly to figure out if she has one brother or two." The serpent pair looked darkly at their teammate.

Jack was looking at his pokemon somewhat confused, quite clearly trying to remember the events being discussed more clearly. "She always stole the pokeballs before I caught a new pokemon," he said thoughtfully. "Every time."

"Wait, every time?" Vibration asked surprised as his trainer retrieved the pokeball of their other teammate. "Smile, who caught you?" the Flygon asked the Gourgeist that emerged before his trainer could.

"Oh, that question. I'm still here, Vibration, just because she caught me instead doesn't mean I'm her pokemon," the pumpkin shaped spirit replied without preamble. "Strangle managed to call our trainer again?" he then asked.

"To clarify, I gave the humans the ability to understand pokemon," A-0 told Jack. "Seemed simpler that way."

"The humans can what?" the Gourgeist asked looking at his trainer in a bit of horror. "Crap, I just told Jack he didn't catch me."

"From the sounds of things my sister caught your entire team," Serperior said with dark humor.

"Not all of us," Smile said tightly as he looked over to the snake pokemon. "I mean, Vibration was genuine."

"Nooo, I was definitely caught by Strangle too," his teammate corrected.

"Wow, the only member of my team I haven't caught is Serperior," Shawn said clearly quite amused. "Admittedly that is only two pokemon, but it is really sounding like you were just the one in charge."

"I didn't have a successful capture after she left," the other trainer said quietly before shaking himself to look at his former rival in disbelief. "Wait you have two new pokemon? You caught these two?" he asked pointing to Gazimon and A-0.

"Honestly neither of the 'two' he caught should be pokemon," Gazimon said shaking his head. "I'm a digital monster that got turned part pocket monster too, and the other one is a trick question." He pointed the ultra ball on his trainer's belt. "That one is his, because apparently his energy is too usable now."

"Wait, is that pokemon a trainer?" Smile asked pointing to Shawn. "And why is he a snake shaped into a human." The carved gourd then looked critically at Serperior. "With a human that was shaped into a snake leaning on him?"

"You can see that?" the pair asked interested. "Is that a Ghost thing or some other ability?"

"So, did you two switch bodies?" Jack asked clearly confused. "Have I been calling Slasher 'Shawn'? Because he'd try and have his pokemon make that joke."

"Close, they switched bodies, and then had those bodies transformed into each other's," Gazimon told the trainer. "Honestly that is probably a part of why LAS is so upset. She's responsible for the mess that left that as our best option for making Serperior a snake again."

"My continued worry that I have altered their mental states is a contributing factor," the mentioned digital life form agreed.

"Uh, Shawn's sounded pretty normal so far," Jack said looking at the two uneasily. "If anything I'm wondering if Slasher was acting weird to mimic him."

"They are acting the same as always," A-0 told the group. "Bringing up that they act alike just makes them do it even worse." It turned to look at the pair. "Even when they get mad at being compared too much they start speaking in time with each other."

"Strangle did mention she missed her brother's double act with his trainer sometimes," Smile noted. "Generally she sounded upset with herself for thinking so."

"She's not dead you know," Serperior said sounding a little upset and breaking the pattern of speaking along with his trainer. "I was serious about having just spoken with her recently about the kinds of madness that are our job requirements."

"Why exactly didn't it work on the other outlets?" Investigator Roberts cut in from the edge of the group, drawing their attention to Salamence sniffing at the outlet Gazimon had inspected before.

"It was a higher quality energy access point," Shawn replied before looking at one of the three corrupted programs from the server. "What was that before?" he asked pointing to the small room they had found the charging system inside.

"High security storage room," the former recording device said.

"That means that there would be more power hungry things inside of it," A-0 told the Investigator. "It isn't something we do in the Boxes, but there did seem to be similar differences between the power sites in the warehouse servers' main areas and their machine shops. The fabrication machines need more robust connections compared to rechargers like the one we installed in Box 90."

"Development is going over example provided by the two sites," the LAS added. "Analysis of a Loader fabrication unit is not complete yet," she continued thoughtfully. "It was created by the interaction between our incarnation system and the Upload digital world creation process. The device might have similar functionality to this new unit."

"If it wouldn't work then why try?" Jack asked obviously glad for the distraction from his team's issues.

"Because the worlds aren't going to be consistent," A-0 replied. "This was a location with a higher security area. Other places might have uniform power access points, and if this was one of the most advanced they have hit so far they might not have realized that it was a possibility."

Investigator Roberts nodded in agreement to the statement. "This actually was the first target so far with a second far more secure partition in the same system," he said putting the pieces together. "Which means that any targets with systems and setups they haven't hit before aren't going to be as easily broken into as any other target."

"That will calm down a lot of people," Jack agreed, and seeing the others looking at them curiously continued. "We've had groups trying to put in new security, but the biggest source of panic was that nothing seemed to have any real effect."

"This lets us tell them that any improved systems have a chance of helping, and along with the access to the transmission pad we should be able to respond better and find out what works and what doesn't," Roberts added with excitement.


	24. 2-06 Data Gathering

\--- Data Gathering ---

"Anderson, do we have another target to hit in DSS yet?" Executive Thomas shouted as he stomped into the Hackware lab, prompting an annoyed grumble from the pet bed. "If they're sending pokemon after our teams I want their monsters stripped out of storage."

The developer looked up from his computer tiredly. "Unfortunately I have encountered a major complication to any attempts at the DSS pokemon storage system," he answered while his techs continued to look over the data passive and a limited number of active scans had produced of the DSS infrastructure.

"A 'major complication'? Like the disaster that took out one of your pet data manipulators?" the leader of Upload asked casting a dark glance to the source of the grumble. "How dangerous will these things be after we hit them with the conversion?"

"They are quite immune to being converted into digital worlds," Anderson replied standing up. "There is no possible way we can use our latest method on them."

"They have a way of stopping that?" Thomas shouted. "How can they already have a way of stopping our new secret weapon?"

"The most thorough way possible. After all, you cannot make a system into a digital world if it already is one," Anderson continued as a Crab hopped up onto his shoulder. "We have an answer to why they possess the capacity to enter digital worlds, and also a reason why they have systems to stabilize what is inside of them both present and fully functional."

The Boss of Team Upload did not look at all happy at the news. "So we can just attack them directly then?" he suggested harshly while looking at the Hackware.

"Not if we want to avoid losing any more Porygon," a gruff voice said from next to him. "Any attack with the intent to steal pokemon in those systems results in terrible outcomes for us."

"Unlike the last one?" Thomas countered.

"How dangerous their interception team is in practice can be determined with some more data," Anderson interrupted. "How they are maintaining over 200 digital worlds is a question we need to answer before we can develop a counter to any tracking capacity they possess." He motioned to Bob who nervously brought up an image of the trainer and team of pokemon who had intercepted their second attack. The still image revealed the supposed human had red slit eyes that should have been on his Serperior. "With that many locations the natural formation of digital life from program interception becomes a notable risk. Best case scenario is that they have multiple teams that can deal with our current practices."

"I still don't see how that isn't the worst case sir," Bob said darkly. "The Serperior didn't even slow down on fighting everyone else while it took out the Dos."

"Not to mention that slash," Alice added. "With how tough our Crabs are that was a pokemon killing move." This statement drew Executive Thomas' attention, causing him to look more seriously at the four legged Hackware on Anderson's shoulder.

"Because you would need multiple teams to respond to the quantity of hazards that would be produced by the scale of this system. If they do not have multiple well trained teams then they do have an internal security system advanced enough to handle the threat," Anderson replied unhappily. "Such a system would eventually result in analysis equipment that could track our travel through digital worlds. Given they have been running this system for years, that would mean that we are now being actively and effectively tracked."

"And how exactly do we determine which they have without losing more assets?" Executive Thomas asked coldly.

"By going somewhere that they cannot as easily see," the gruff voice answered. "And gathering as much data as we can take."

\---

"The next one that we need to look into is the department store," Investigator Roberts informed Grant's team. "We are taking their security pokemon inside to help with going over the viability of the system for future use."

"They have already requested the use of our new warehouse digital life forms," Janice added. "Management has not decided on this topic yet, mostly because we cannot effectively reproduce Manifest units to manage the creatures. Item storage right now is split in at least three ways on how to handle that issue, and at minimum the target facility will be the site of research into the active creation of that kind of ecosystem."

"So we're up for handling this one?" Quagsire asked.

"Yes, we've been experiencing some increased activity across the DSS storage systems as a whole," A-0 replied. "It almost looks like someone is scanning the whole place, so we're expecting another attack by Upload. Your team will be more than enough to investigate the other site with the help from the client's pokemon, and LAS will be on standby to come in after you are secure to preform more advanced scanning," it continued nodding to the digital life form.

"A Shipper is ready in Box 55 to transfer client forces when you are ready for them," Metang told the group as they assembled on the pad. "Once data is recovered on the makeup of the target digital world we can determine how to setup more standard transfer methods for their use."

"Is there a lot of information that we'd need to collect to figure that out?" Jack asked nervously. "If an attack is coming I don't want to be stuck for too long out in some other world."

"You could probably get a lot of data out of one," Shawn said taking out the Pokedex. "The basic stuff would help with figuring out how to get in and out better, or what the physical conditions were like. With an artificial world you could also get a lot of information about whoever made it too."

"You would also be able to look for any changes that were made to the place," Gazimon added looking thoughtful. "Actually, I can think of a lot of stuff I could have done back in my old world with you guy's ability to just go around scanning the code of everything directly. Outside of DSS there would also be all the corruption in the code too."

"I need to finish developing a more compact information storage cube," the LAS said to herself, clearly taking the comments into consideration.

"Right, we'll keep on the lookout for that then," Investigator Roberts said. "Ready." The group then vanished in a flash of light.

"Well then, have we found anything useful in the pile of data they left us?" Serperior asked now that it was just the core team again.

"They were mostly using visual sensors and a few very basic data probes," A-0 complained. "The most useful stuff is things they already knew from looking at the pictures."

"The development team is putting it even worse," Janice added unhappily. "As far as they are concerned all of it is too primitive to be useful." She then shook her head. "They can't seem to figure out if the results they got out of a search of typically available digital world inspection gear is a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand we apparently have custom stuff generations ahead of our competition, but on the other hand nobody else has stuff up to our standards to help us with these problems."

"I'm guessing we aren't lucky enough for that to include Upload's gear?" Gazimon asked in a tone indicating he hoped to be wrong.

"From information available direct pokemon manipulation is main enemy method," Metang replied. "Porygon, and the Hackware themselves, provide the core analysis and active functionality. Other hardware has been lost on too many occasions for it to be of proper quality."

"They are definitely working using stolen electronics for the most part," Shawn agreed. "That's what the dev team was mostly after, what the typically available gear was so we knew the starting point. From what we've learned they probably either already had the first Hackware when they escaped the Rocket base, or they were made directly by their Porygon. None of their current gear is up for anything more than modifications to existing digital life forms that advanced."

"Which means they are dependent on reproduction to generate new ones," Serperior added. "So the two limits they have on replacing their forces are how many digital power sources they can compromise and how quickly they can evolve their Hackware."

"At least they cannot advance further at this time," LAS added hopefully. "Further analysis of the scans recovered of the destroyed 'Crab' unit show a lack of information consistent with Gazimon's evolutionary data. This information is found in both of the lesser unit designs."

"Was there anything else in that stuff?" Gazimon asked looking uncomfortable with the comparison.

"Data on the Vir units is sadly more limited," she replied. "The scans have a large amount of Dos interference. The results do hint at a more complex space of possibility, but direct analysis would be required to have any data on other possible forms."

"At least one is capable of data manipulation," Metang speculated. "To allow for corruption of power systems in the case of loss of Porygon support."

"Confirmed," LAS replied. "Analysis of the scans of both the Hackware charger itself and the attempted formations on the lesser power nodes indicates that a Porygon was not responsible."

"So there is some kind of support Hackware," Shawn said nodding thoughtfully. "Probably kept back like we are doing with you right now."

"Troubleshooters," the voice of Charlie 13 cut into the conversation. "I have an interesting situation. It seems someone has made the mistake of trying to sneak into my Box."

The room fell into silence for an instant before the team rushed onto the transfer pad. "Metang get it ready now," Janice ordered as her pokemon was already starting the process.

"They likely thought that the interference from my experiments would mask their actions," the Administrator continued despite the rush his first statement had caused. "It is a shame that I have a full array of transfer detection and analysis equipment covering that area."

"Brother, make sure we arrive where they are," A-0 demanded.

"They have already scattered, and unfortunately that is where the good news ends. I can track when they leave, or if more arrive, but inside that part of the Box is just too disrupted for me to get a clean signal," the other Porygon replied with the same tone which was now clearly overly calm rather than genuinely. "I'll put you as close as is safe, keep my inhabitants from grabby thieves, and do my best to mimic the Legendary I look like when I find them." The room almost seemed to darken with the final part of the statement.

"Metang!" Shawn requested strongly.

"Transfer initiating," the Steel/Psychic intoned.

\---

They arrived on the center of a good sized fragment of polygonal land with a clear path of floating rocks leading out towards the ripples and cracked land of the Administrator's test area. A surprised clicking sound echoed from in front of them during the time they could not see as Serperior wrapped a nearby target in vines.

The creature was a thin tube shaped collection of red polygons with a number of single Dos claws extending from it at irregular intervals along its length. A good number of vines were struggling to hold onto it as the creature attempted to phase through the constricting plant material.

"It is definitely a Ghost type," A-0 noted looking over the Hackware. "Not one I recognize though. Contain or kill, Shawn?" the Porygon asked quickly.

"I can't keep a handle on this thing," Serperior said looping more vines around the creature.

Gazimon did not wait, simply slashing black energy coated claws through the knot of vines. The digital creature cracked from the hit, the shattered after a followup strike by the digimon. "The thing had active scanners on," he warned the others. "I don't want to find out why the hard way."

"Troubleshooters, I am gathering data on the Ghosts that have entered my Box," Charlie 13 said through the Pokedex speakers. "I will send tracking information as soon as I can. Most should be closer to the distortions."

A-0 sent an acknowledgement to its brother and the group began to hop between the floating platforms leading to the damaged area of the Box. "Okay, now that I know what a Box is supposed to look like, that is a whole lot worse looking," Gazimon noted looking over the place he had entered their worlds. "The cracks have curves in them," he noted shuddering.

The larger platform had another of the new Hackware creatures looking between the distortions hanging in the air around it. As the group landed Serperior once again entangled the digital life form in a web of vines.

A white blur then swept by slashing through the vines and allowing the Hackware to escape by phasing through the ground itself. The creature was a four legged canine with short pure white fur that extended in a long mane around its neck. Its face was a deep blue color with harsh red eyes. Each of its feet was tipped with three red polygonal claws, and had another red dewclaw at the rear of the foot facing backwards. Instead of a tail it had a short red crystal blade, matching the harshly curved red horn extending from the right side of its face.

"That looks a lot more advanced," Gazimon whispered as the creature turned to look at them.

"This is the problem with only being able to sense the future in disasters," it said in a gruff voice. "Even when you benefit it still ends up badly for someone."

"An Absol? What did they do to him?" Shawn asked in a quick hiss.

"Nothing that did not benefit me in the long run," the pokemon answered looking over the group critically. "That is the way things go isn't it? You get tired of everyone treating you with suspicion and distrust, and eventually give up on exceeding their expectations."

"So that's it then, you were upset that your species was seen badly so you signed up with thieves?" Serperior asked harshly.

"Oh no, I set off a few minor ones myself first," the Absol taunted. "It didn't take too much to figure out how to fine tune my senses to show what outcomes were best for me."

"Then why bother with Upload?" Shawn asked looking at the area in search of other Hackware. "Sounds like you were fine on your own."

"Team Rocket helped me get the most from my disasters, and now Upload is giving me more power and capability to get everything I ever wanted." The red crystal like portions of the altered pokemon's body seemed to flash for a moment. "I just need to make sure that it is other people having the disaster first."

\---

Absol was perfectly aware that he needed to stall as long as possible. His enemies had started to hesitate as soon as they knew he was a pokemon, and starting off with conversation seemed to be altering this disaster onto the path he had seen to get Upload out of the latest mess. The expedition had seemed like it was going to go properly to start, with enough interference around their arrival site to nearly disrupt their transfer. However the path had started shifting in subtle ways from the very moment they arrived, and some of the more desirable outcomes had vanished far too quickly.

"Oh, one of them," the rabbit monster said unhappily, and in doing so threw the paths into a mess that defiantly betrayed it as a Dark type as well.

"Oh? Seen someone like me before? I'm quite surprised," Absol replied curling his toes not just into but through the ground just as his Hackware had done to escape them.

"Your digital parts are stable," the Porygon noted critically, prompting the Upload pokemon to raise a paw to look at it. The addition to his form was the biggest benefit of joining with Upload. Not only allowing him to speak, but also granting useful powers both inside and outside of these artificial worlds.

"Oh yes," he replied flexing the claws. "To deal with an injury the Hackware team merged one of their intermediate level units with me. One of my assistants, like the one you killed," he noted recalling the loss of contact with the unit in the direction they had arrived from. "We know quite a bit about that kind of operation." He held back a frown as the paths seemed to not shift towards or away from his goal.

"Interesting," the Serperior said, showing that all three of the pokemon could also speak like humans. The Hackware hybrid could not help but feel a bit jealous of the fact, as speaking to humans had always felt like it would get past the legends of his species when he was young. "Good to know that you are capable of that. We typically don't see digital-pokemon hybrids-" Vines burst from the ground underneath Absol's feet, and only his added Ghost type allowed him to dodge out of them in time.

"Worms, grab what you can," he instructed his Hackware as he dove through the ground himself to meet the group at the far side of the platform. "Get ready to punch back out." As he emerged from the other side he was surprised to find more flat land with gravity now pulling in the other direction. Taking advantage of the lucky result Absol shot forward along with three of his seven remaining Worm Hackware. "Scan as long as possible," he emphasized.

"Well then, no humans at all," a dark voice said from in front of him as the world itself shifted so that there was now a massive grey serpentine pokemon floating in front of him. "Just digital creatures and a mutant pokemon," the clearly Legendary pokemon said moving forward by undulating its polygonal body.

Absol was suddenly struck with the harshest split in the paths he had ever felt before. If he avoided or dodged long enough to escape then every disaster he could possibly encounter after this point was possible. Otherwise, if he struck this target with all his might, he would never face a disaster ever again. So, with no desire whatsoever to die to this unexpected pokemon, he instead used his Ghost type to remove his momentum and push off the nothingness around him to change his direction.

Rather than shooting off into space he instead found himself landing back in front of the pokemon team. He could see them cornering another of his Worms that apparently had met the same fate of somehow having the very world around them reshaped to benefit its owners. Skidding to a stop he traced the paths again, and could not keep a smirk from crossing his face as he looked over his foes. "Alright Worms, I can see when we're not wanted," he taunted positioning to block any attacks from hitting his other Hackware units. "Let's get out of here."

\---

The digimon, and Gazimon was quite sure that this creature counted, was joined by a number of the aptly named Worm Hackware as he attempted to somehow escape from the Box. "Do ya really want to try and run here?" Gazimon asked harshly, but mostly due to worry. "It isn't exactly the safest location to try anything." A slash from Serperior shattered the unit that had been transported in front of them before the digimon's return.

"Ah but did you catch all of us?" the Upload Absol countered clearly concentrating. Charlie 13 apparently decided in the meantime to collect the others as three more thin Hackware arrived from sudden changes in the layout of the Box to crash into the altered Dark type. "Right, competent enemies willing to kill. Book it guys," he declared grabbing onto two of them with his claws. Just as the form of the false Giratina loomed out into the area the seven Hackware jumped forward into a shadowy mass and vanished.

"So, that's an Absol then?" the rabbit digimon asked unhappily as they looked at the empty space where the invaders had been.

"Yeah, disaster sensors," Serperior answered. "Never expected to actually see one that used it like that."

"I'm not too fond of our enemies having a warning system for when things go wrong," Shawn said. "We will need to look into ways of getting around however Absol see futures."

"They were scanning the Box," A-0 noted. "Brother, do you have any ideas on what they got away with?"

The other Porygon looked surprisingly smug despite the escape. "Well, we got away with a new transfer method," Charlie 13 said moving closer to the platform. "I'll have to check the places they were looking at, but they didn't get outside of the distortions. Honestly I'm surprised they survived looking at some of that stuff."

"Are you saying we're going to start making those black hole-things they got away with?" Gazimon asked dubiously while clearly comparing the mentioned method to the distortions in the air around the platform.

"They are much closer to what I was trying, but I meant the way they got here. Between the active data from the sensor systems I specifically made to find out how to do that kind of transfer and the data we've recovered elsewhere this is the last piece in the puzzle of how to use just a Porygon to travel to and from digital worlds." The Administrator looked around, his smug face faltering slightly. "Odd, the energy patterns here are a bit off," he said looking at the distortions and cracks. "It seems to correspond with some of the places they were scanning."

"What data did they get from those locations?" A-0 asked quickly while turning to look at the distortions itself. Shawn joined in moments later with the Pokedex.

"It's gone," Charlie 13 said faintly. "Like the code of an item retrieved from a storage server. There was something inside of these."

Gazimon had gone pale looking at the data himself. "Does this bit look like me to anyone else?" he asked with quiet horror. "Because I hate to bring it up now, but some of my old buddies might have hit the same thing that got me in a bit less lucky of a way."

"How much worse?" Shawn asked warily.

"I might have just barely avoided a giant ball of wires eating me, only to get sucked into some sort of distortion after a cyborg dinosaur blew it up?" the digimon confessed.

"So it wasn't just a black hole in reality you fell into?" Shawn asked looking nervously at the damaged landscape.

"Yeah, that bit definitely used to be a Gazimon," Charlie 13 said sounding a bit sick. "I'm going to have to go over all of this now. Who knows what they can do with this data."

"Given what the dev team has been trying with just Gazimon's data? I'm almost regretting not just blasting all of them to make sure they didn't get out," A-0 replied coldly. "Should have figured a disaster pokemon wouldn't leave before causing one."

\---

Investigator Roberts looked around the room unsure as they explained the situation after pulling him out of the department store's new digital world. "Right, so I have some idea of how bad this is, but I was also under the impression that life forms and items would end up physically present in a digital world. How did these digimon end up stuck?" he asked the worried Troubleshooter team.

"Because unlike me they weren't actually alive when they got here," Gazimon said unhappily going over a black pane in his hands. "The thing I saw eat them was what we called the Dark Network. An evil system made to control an entire area of my digital world for my old bosses." The digimon shook his head sadly. "From what we have of older scans only a small fragment of it ended up here along with me."

"The digimon data present in that fragment was highly distorted by the transition, not to mention broken off a larger whole," A-0 added. "Since it was already from a digital world the incarnation system didn't have any reason to touch it, and the already broken nature of my brother's Box caused the data to just get stuck in the distortions."

"Given that he's already seeing a decrease in interference after this material data was removed, and that Gazimon says it was subject to an uncontrolled tear in reality before it arrived here, it is safe to say that its physical form was actually part of the distortions themselves," Shawn added looking sympathetically at Gazimon.

"Charlie 13 is going over what they left behind, but so far it seems the larger portion of this 'Network' fragment was taken," Janice said unhappily. "Overall the fragment is small compared to the whole thing according to Gazimon, but at minimum dozens of advanced digimon had been eaten by the thing. How many of those were inside the part that hit here is hard to tell."

"What can they do with dead monsters?" Roberts asked clearly worried about the idea.

"At absolute minimum they can use that data to develop better Hackware code," LAS told him with a shudder. "Using scans of Gazimon we have stabilized and improved a number of our own systems. With Upload's access to non-living data that can be more roughly handled and their existing experiance with life form creation? Champion stage Hackware might be a possibility."

"If they can revive any of the digimon it will be just as bad. Boss monkey had a lot of Tyranomon and Monochromon that got eaten at the end there, and they are both Champions," Gazimon warned. "Any other digimon would probably be more Gazimon, and we were doing a lot of the day to day work on the Dark Network." He gave a huff and shattered his pane. "I can think of a few things I could do with the fragments we have of it, and I don't like any of them."


	25. 2-07 Support Systems

\--- Support Systems ---

Nobody was truly happy with the results of the attack on the Box. The loss of the previously unidentified digimon data was a hazard that the various groups involved were scrambling to analyze and prepare for, with the DSS development teams in particular focusing on analyzing the remaining data. The Troubleshooters and Investigators were better suited for preparing to take on the possible threat directly. To that end looking into the current status of all the previous attack locations was their highest priority. As a result the entire combined Troubleshooter and Investigation teams were present going over as much data they could get from the prior victims along with records of related natural digital worlds.

"Transfer process updates are undergoing final viability testing," Metang informed the group as their part of a stopping point to go over the status of everyone's current projects. "Initial safe connection rate is much faster using the modifications, and a method has been confirmed to remove loss of sight and notable flash on entry."

"What exactly are the requirements looking like?" A-0 asked still going over his own data on the Box specific information that Upload could have recovered as well.

"Processing and component requirements for Upload method are notably below DSS Porygon limits both inside and outside of digital worlds," the machine like pokemon replied. "Upon evolution we will also be able to preform the activity." They pointed to themselves to clarify their meaning. "Unknown support Hackware is likely also capable of the action."

"Those weren't the support ones?" Jack asked still clearly unsure of how bad the situation had shifted during the prior attack. "They did get in and out on their own."

"Component specializations of the 'Worm' class Hackware emphasize the use of stealth and infiltration over general data manipulation," the LAS answered displaying a trio of Vir in one of her surface panels, the two known next stages in two below that, and a question mark in a third next to them. "Vir antigrav and intangibility capacity is increased in them, along with improvements to specialized components to bypass security measures. The direct data manipulation components present in Vir have atrophied to some degree in both known evolutions, thus at minimum a third that focuses on those components at the expense of other capacity is likely to exist."

"Unknown creature would not be advanced enough for digital world conversion, limiting that tactic to their Porygon, but is advanced enough for other Hackware related operations," Metang added somberly. "Advancement using digimon data might allow for a creature capable of the activity to evolve from this unknown support class."

"Ugh, any chance that we can catch them before they get that mess back?" Serperior asked the Investigators. "We can apparently track their progress better now."

"Their immediate destination was in fact one of the previous targets," Investigator Roberts admitted. "We found two more charging units at the site, neither of them producing Dos. From there they used an exit method to arrive at a utility station, where they used an older method to travel along communication lines elsewhere." He sighed heavily. "We can actually track that method fairly easily, but even in the best case the results are inaccurate. Given how easily they could chain another dive into a digital world from there we've basically lost the trail."

A beeping sound interrupted the group from Janice's station, prompting her to rapidly open the video call. It opened to reveal a white and dark yellow Porygon hovering in the middle of the screen. "Troubleshooters," Alpha 45 greeted the assembled group. "I've heard that a Box has been attacked," she continued without her normal cheer. "Given that, I figure that my current projects, while not ready for full use yet, are worth discussing directly."

"Sister, the news is bad, but we at least know what we are up against," A-0 replied while the Investigators shuffled nervously.

"I have more to talk about than that," she responded sounding a bit tired. "However, at a minimum I want Gazimon to look over the newest project now, before I end up going too far in the wrong direction."

"Me? What are you doing that I can help with?" Gazimon asked surprised.

"The attributes of digital life forms, you called them Vaccine, Viral, and Data. We have seen them a lot of the time, but knowing that they can work like a pokemon's types gives an option that might help with our new enemies," she replied somewhat darkly. "I have the start of some methods of aligning a move to these digital types. I want you to check over what I'm doing to make sure I'm not starting off in the wrong direction."

"That's actually something that I'm our expert on, isn't it?" the digimon asked dryly. "Do you actually need the rest of us, or is this something I can handle while everyone else keeps working?"

"I have every TM I can get my hands on to help with the more mundane moves," she said cheerily. "Including a bunch that I have mostly working of obscure moves."

"This would provide a chance to test the new transference method," Metang added with some excitement.

Janice looked over the entire group. "Alright, we're doing this team by team," she declared. "That way we always have two on hand to deal with any new problems. Shawn, your team's first to get Gazimon in there."

"Remember to show up yourself Janice," Alpha 45 said with a bit of a laugh. "I'm not leaving any of my siblings' protectors without the best abilities they can get."

\---

The arrival was much quicker, and the team practically jumped at the sudden appearance of the new terrain with no visual blanking. Alpha 45 had jumped back at the almost hostile reaction and looked rather shaken herself. "Alright, just appearing suddenly is a lot weirder than I expected. Can you at least put some of the flash back?" she asked sounding uneasy.

"It wasn't that nice from this end either," Shawn said sounding slightly sick. "I think I need a minute." Serperior clearly agreed as he was limply laying across Shawn now that it was clear there was no direct threats.

"I just experienced an error," A-0 added not sounding much better.

"Being the only one not suffering isn't as great as it should be," Gazimon complained walking over to the Administrator. "I'm guessing this new project is setup in the third test building?"

"Yes. So far we're just trying to get the basics ready to do some real analysis of the process," she replied as the others recovered from the new method of entering a digital world. "Figuring out how to make targets that properly reflect the impact of moves with these new attributes and altering a pokemon's existing moves to possess them. Developing dedicated moves to have these properties that can be made into TMs will come later. With those we can easily prepare pokemon for combat against any digital life forms."

"Ok, you put that really simply, but everything you just proposed doing scares me," the digimon replied as they started off towards the facility. "Back in the digital world we don't have 'moves' that just anyone could learn. If you had an attack it was your attack and it matched you. Getting what you are trying to do here to work sounds like the type of thing my old bosses would love to get their hands onto."

"It should be one of the first things our enemies will think of," Alpha 45 replied sadly. "If they are already creating new life forms then they should be able to track these down, and I doubt they wouldn't try and alter these as well."

"It isn't that simple," the rabbit monster argued. "What a digimon does is a big part of it. You can have someone who was a Data in both their Baby and In Training stages, then because it ends up attacking others a lot it can become a Viral as a Rookie. Just changing that isn't something you can do without also changing who the digimon is."

"Strangely enough that does fit," the Administrator responded, the group nearing the door to the third building. "Changing a pokemon's type drastically for any real time period causes significant physical changes. If digimon are similar then some part of them would need to change during a similar modification."

"I think he means that digimon can't do the same energy manipulation that pokemon can," Serperior replied. "Or at a minimum they aren't able to do it as commonly as we can. Their abilities are a bit more tied into their actual makeup than ours." He looked over at his Dark typed teammate. "I'm including him in that too. He still has his digimon stuff, but he's a pokemon now. We are used to making our energy into a different type."

"That also helps with my set of current problems," she admitted opening the door. The structure inside was very bare bones, split into two large sections. The first was filled with relatively small digital constructs of various kinds that were clearly attempts at targets. The second area was a basic firing range setup with a number of the targets. Inside was the Zoroark they had met beforehand, who was looking over a series of the constructs set on short poles.

"Ah, you got him. These are still not cooperating," the vulpine creature said frowning at the middle target. "The results are inconsistent," he continued turning and partially changing into shadows for an instant.

"Enjoying Acid Armor?" Serperior asked jokingly while Gazimon moved forward to look over the current setup.

"It turns out a side effect of actually knowing Acid Armor is that you are never fully solid again," the illusion pokemon answered sounding as if he wasn't sure if he liked the answer himself. "It takes some getting used to."

"Why is the Data one stronger?" the digimon asked tapping the middle target. "Looks like the advantage of a Viral wouldn't even show up if you compared these two." He pointed at the middle and left targets.

The two locals let out loud sighs at this question. "Well, I guess that explains that issue. I don't suppose you can give any advice on how to make these things consistently?"

"I can try I guess," Gazimon responded somewhat unhappily. The group soon set to work going over the attempts. "How exactly are you trying to make these?"

"Sadly just crafting them directly isn't proving too easy," Alpha 45 said clearly annoyed. "So we've been trying to use Alpha 30's work on controlled corruption production to make them." She looked at the small quantity of items. "We're not leaving them around very long, just in case. Unfortunately the system seems to randomly create the new ones each time we try. Just getting each of the three kinds the same shape isn't happening most of the time."

"Converting blank disks of material into the desired attribute isn't working either," Zoroark added. "It seems to need some level of life to hold these properties properly."

"And without a target to test the attacks on you don't know if they are working as intended," A-0 noted looking over the fragments of corruption. "We need LAS."

"Her Analyzer drones are consistent digital life forms," Shawn clarified nodding and getting out the Pokedex to contact Janice. "The only downside is figuring out if you can change them to different attributes."

"Well. While we're waiting for that what do you have for moves so far?" Gazimon asked the Administrator.

"We have started with trying to link the attributes to types. Dark with Viral was one of the things we wished to check given your own typing," Zoroark said with a sly smile. "As you can tell we haven't been getting clean data, but there does not seem to be any connections whatsoever. Viral targets appear to become more fragile to even Dark typed Vaccine attacks."

"That is interesting," Shawn commented thoughtfully. "Can you do anything like that for Gazimon? Something to deal with any of these new possible digimon we might be up against?"

"Most of the ones they could get would be Data attributes," the digimon informed his trainer. "But I'm not opposed to having a way to hit a Vaccine type harder if you could make something into a Data attack."

"I'd guess a Vaccine attack would probably be the most valuable given what the Hackware are," Serperior countered. "I'm not up for it myself if it isn't too stable yet."

"Let me check Gazimon out for a moment," Alpha 45 told the group before moving towards the digimon and producing a single white pane. "Huh, you have five clear patterns."

"Patterns?" A-0 asked somewhat bewildered by the term. "I thought that was just for TM moves?"

"It only really applies to commonly used moves," Zoroark clarified clearly familiar with the phrasing. "If you do one particular move a lot its pattern sticks out in your body. Typically the four or so most used moves are the only ones clear enough to inspect in that way."

"My sensors are configured for that kind of analysis due to my work," the Administrator confirmed. "Though having a new Dragon type move does seem rather strange. It seems to be related to your Ground type move in some way."

"Wait, do you mean my land mines?" Gazimon asked. "That's a move now?"

"It seems to be," the white and yellow Porygon agreed. "Hmm, your original three moves are all Viral, but both of the new ones lack any attribute." She brought up another pane, this one yellow, and turned it so the digimon could read. "So, I could try and alter those two into the remaining attributes if you are willing to try that."

"Let's keep that as an option until you've got your testing down a bit better," Gazimon replied reluctantly. "I'd be nice, but something without any attribute honestly sounds like it could be fairly good for breaking expectations until stuff's ready." The rabbit monster's grin at the thought was quickly mirrored by his teammates.

Alpha 45 nodded apparently having expected the result, then looked up. "Ok, Janice just told me that LAS is ready to come in," she told the group while moving to the exit of the building. "I'll go get her so we can see about some standardized targets."

"Never solid again?" Serperior questioned Zoroark once she was out the door.

"It isn't an issue while learning the move, as the energy pattern given by the TM needs to be quite deliberately used," the Dark type answered. "After the fact the problem is that your body knows it can melt if needed, and as it gets more and more used to that reality it becomes easier to slip into doing so at the smallest prompting." He shook his head, causing his red hair to briefly melt into a mass of wispy shadows. "I have it the worst of our testers as my own change took hold first."

"Hmm, I'm not too fond of getting my favorite clothes all sticky with myself," Serperior said eying his spot on Shawn's shoulder. "How hard is it to clean your drippings off things?" he asked partly joking.

The fox like pokemon chuckled at the statement. "How much sap do you already get on your trainer? Generally it isn't that bad," he answered allowing an arm to change into its non-solid form. "I don't exactly make anything that gets left behind, but Sandslash does have to deal with a bit of sand getting into everything around her."

"Isn't that normal for a Sandslash?" Shawn asked following through on the jovial conversation. "Its sounding like it isn't that adhesive of an issue."

"I really hope they get back soon," A-0 complained as the joking conversation continued.

"Hate to say it, but this will only be worse when Serperior knows how to do that himself," Gazimon cautioned sounding like he wasn't sorry about the fact at all, prompting a groan from the Porygon.

The jellyfish shaped digital life form then entered alongside the local Administrator. "I have limited availability," she was telling the Porygon sounding quite unsure. "Production of Analyzer drones is limited by the presence of my kind."

"A bit of time is better than none," Alpha 45 said with understanding. "Unless your creators could be convinced to provide the code to make another of you?" At the strong flinches from the Troubleshooters she looked over at the LAS sympathetically. "Sorry, I don't mean to bring up bad topics."

"The recovered listening device is in final checks to see how they responded to the conversion process," the LAS said quietly. "Their two siblings are providing what they can to see if their personality survived my reproductive process," she continued practically spitting the word 'reproductive'. "They might be available to provide this service to your Box afterward."

"You hadn't mentioned that yet," Shawn replied thoughtfully. "Last I heard about them they didn't have much longer to go before..." he trailed off uneasy.

"What was wrong with them?" Zoroark asked watching the sudden shift in tone that the conversation had prompted.

"They were made by Upload's digital world conversion process, which isn't as nice to programs as the incarnation system," Serperior answered. "Because they were the programs of some listening devices they ended up basically attached to those after creation, like a Squirtle has a shell. Upload destroyed the devices while they were in the server." The implication that it would be much the same as destroying the shell of a Squirtle was clearly understood and brought a horrified expression to the illusion maker and local Porygon.

"Delta 2 has been looking into possible solutions," A-0 told the locals calmly. "But last I knew there wasn't any real options to help. I've been trying to think of ways to either keep from telling the Investigators or break it to them gently."

"If this testing proves viable I will contact her to see if they could be used for this work," the digital life from repeated. "Having a purpose to achieve might aid in possible survival."

"Right, that's enough of that for now," Gazimon cut in. "Its a possible option, and it might fix this issue, but first we need to see if the Analyzers can even be changed to have a different attribute."

At this the LAS looked around the rooms to see what was available before creating three of her dome shaped drones. Alpha 45 quickly moved forward to inspect the smaller digital constructs, opening a pane for each. "Okay, I can see that these all have the Data attribute," the Administrator told the group. "I'm going to try and change the outer two to the other two attributes, then we can have Gazimon test them to see if the results work." After a moment the left dome flashed white and turned an ominous purple color while the right Analyzer became a golden color.

"That isn't going to be too helpful," Zoroark commented on the change in color while motioning for the constructs and digimon to use the testing range for the next part. "Keeping which is which hidden has an impact on a lot of testing."

"It's a place to start," Gazimon countered. "Let me know when you're ready to scan this," he instructed the various digital creatures watching. After receiving confirmations from the two Porygon and the LAS he quickly slashed each of the three constructs with basic black energy coated claw attacks. He then paused a moment to look over the now empty space where they had been. "That seemed about right to me. Is that going to work?" he asked the Administrator.

"They are a bit less resilient than I would like," Alpha 45 said still sounding happy. "Still, it is better than we had before. Right, let's setup another set and see about your moves Zoroark." The other Dark type nodded as LAS produced another trio of Analyzers to use for the test. These were soon altered and setup for the pokemon to attack.

The vulpine pokemon nodded and preformed a perfect recreation of Gazimon's attempt, going so far as to quickly reshape his form into the rabbit monster's in a flash of its shadowy melted form. "Hmm, the Viral broke easier, and the Data much harder," he commented in Gazimon's voice before returning to his normal form in another burst of shadows. "Ugh. Acid Armor has made that into a partial transformation now," he complained lightly. "Do you have any idea how annoying it is to fully change like that?"

"I do, but I don't use the move in question anymore because of that," A-0 replied earning a laugh from the fox. "Looks like you have a starting point to me. We'll see what's going on with the recording devices after we're done here. Hopefully they will be alright after the change, and then we might be able to have them help you with this kind of testing."

"Actually I can think of quite a few projects targets like these would help a lot with," its sister answered. "Thank you all for the help with this. I really hope it will end up helping the Troubleshooters as a whole when I've got it ready."

"I guess the next thing we need to cover here is Acid Armor for Serperior?" Gazimon asked, producing nervous expressions on both of the locals. "Unless that isn't ready yet."

"Its ready, but I don't really want my sibling to be saying 'I told you so'," Alpha 45 confessed. "The metaphysical aspects ended up being a mess."

"We have found a way to determine the best non-solid form for a given pokemon, a task made more difficult by that property being somewhat inconsistent between even members of the same species," Zoroark added. "In general we have found some common materials for a number of types. However, the exact makeup of the materials can vary greatly when it comes to the best option for a specific pokemon. Dirt and mud options on their own are rather annoyingly variable."

"The problem of course is that, while we can easily make TM patterns that work over and over for the common material versions, they only work for a subset of all pokemon, and even then specific pokemon can have trouble actually learning the move from them due to the minor incompatibilities," the Administrator continued. "The general case pattern, one that finds the specific material that works best for whoever it is used on, does not work over and over again. In fact some of the materials needed for the spell I ended up including require replacement after only a single use." She sighed heavily. "So congratulations A-0, so far you're right on the money with that one."

"The move itself also falls out of use fairly easily. Despite my earlier statement, if left totally unused for some time this artificial version becomes harder to use again. Thus requiring a period of refamiliarization before it is truly usable again," the fox like pokemon told them. "I enjoy most of the effects of the move, so the minor instinctive uses are more than enough to keep it fresh for me, but even my body would solidify again if I stopped myself from liquefying for a good time period."

"Ah, I'm sorry sister," A-0 said sounding embarrassed. "I did not wish you ill luck with this project. You seemed happy with it."

"It might just be a setback," she replied. "Still, we do have a simple pattern available now to teach Serperior the move. I was mainly thinking about giving you all access to the pattern library I am making from that collection of TMs I have gotten a hold of." She floated towards the door. "The wider range of pokemon that can learn from them inside of a digital world is something I am more than willing to exploit when trying to protect my family."

Zoroark followed the group over to the other facility, which was currently empty of pokemon while still having the array of tests for liquefied forms. "Right, give me a moment to get it setup and then you can go through some tests here to make sure the move actually works for you," the Administrator said moving over to an area with tools and constructs scattered thorough it.

"The other's are taking a break for now while we work on the attribute moveset," Zoroark informed the group as they took in the otherwise empty building. "It is also a bit of time not working on it directly to see if it helps us with finding some new ideas on how to do this."

The white and yellow Porygon returned with a fairly large device while checking several components of the item. "There is a small bowl over there where we do this. The first time is something of a doozy, and generally pokemon can't keep their shape," she informed the snake pokemon who slid off Shawn's shoulder and into the indicated depression.

"Ready to go," he replied cheerily as she floated over to set the device on his head. After a moment the device began to glow and then beeped three times. Then Serperior's body splattered into the bowl producing a green and yellow pool of liquid. "Okay, that was odder than I expected," he said from the swirling pool in a bubbling voice.

"That was the most frightening thing I have ever seen," the LAS said bluntly having rapidly floated to be as far from the basin as possible.

The liquefied pokemon then bulged and stirred for a moment before a tendril of the fluid rose out from the mass and opened two slit eyes. This prompted a laugh from Zoroark. "Oh wow, I forgot that snakes are tubes," the illusion pokemon said looking over the new Acid Armor user. "The first hard part is trying to get back to a normal shape while using the move, but the easiest starting point is most of the way there for you isn't it?"

A smile flowed across the slopping serpents newly formed head as the colors of the risen portion settled into the proper pattern for a Serperior. "I think I can get a ladle on it," he said in an oddly flowing way as minor features began to form around the shape, their presence made clearer as he resumed the proper proportions.

"That was actually a bit too fast," Alpha 45 cautioned. "You might be having trouble holding the move."

"Alright," Serperior said sloshing a bit on the floor. "What am I made out of here?"

Alpha 45 inspected him and then looked utterly confused. "I'm not sure," she said darkly causing the serpent to blink. "I've never seen this before."

"I've just earned a trip to Delta 2 haven't I?" the liquid snake asked with a bit of exasperation.

"You appear to be liquid, you," she said after looking for another moment. "You're just turning into a liquid without changing at all," she added with a dry tone. "The one thing I was hoping would work since the beginning, and you just do it out of nowhere. I think I finally get why the others think you sometimes mess with us."

"He isn't," Shawn told her jokingly while walking up to his pokemon. "You look fair. How's it feel Serp?"

"Sloppy. I'll need some work figuring out how to move," Serperior replied while flowing around his trainer to coil across his body. "Will this work?" he asked sounding worried.

The human shifted a bit and then began to walk them towards one of the test rooms. "A bit different, but doable," he replied calmly, causing the liquid pokemon to obviously become more comfortable. "Go ahead and see what you can do."

Serperior took this as an order to shoot forward with surprising speed given the splash that occurred at the end of the leap and the lack of time spent disentangling from Shawn. He then slipped through a grate in a raised floor above his landing area to reach the upper level, and proceeded to splash against the upper floor into a large raised blob having been disorientated by this attempt. "That wasn't as bad as the new transport method," the puddle of pokemon called not quite managing to sound fine.

"You should probably take things slower than that," Zoroark said dryly while shaking his head. "It is quite the different experience."

"Well, that was well past the tests I was planning on for you to try," the Administrator said clearly trying not to laugh. "You should become fully solid again after this first time, as normally you'd need to practice becoming the new material a bit before learning the full move. I can't be as sure in this case, but it still should take a couple of tries to learn a move this complex completely from the TM."

"In the meantime you apparently wanted them to have access to the TM stores you started?" the illusion pokemon asked her while Serperior pulled himself back together and went through the somewhat tight fence forming the walls of the upper floor he was on.

"Our team at a minimum was only considering this TM to be honest," A-0 told them getting nods of agreement from the others, including the slopping form of the snake pokemon who heavily splashed onto his trainer.

"Oh, well in that case I guess you have a bit more time for some tips on learning the move," the other Porygon replied starting them off on some light training.

\---

The team reacted much better to the transmission back to the Lab, as Shawn was only mostly sitting in the puddle of Serperior that resulted and A-0 had avoided the issue by closing its eyes. "We need to work out a better method," Gazimon said quietly as he noticed that a discussion seemed to be happening between Investigator Roberts and his Salamence with Metang caught acting as a translator. The LAS sighed lightly, having taken the transfer fairly easily.

"They have an Absol that has done it," the dragon was arguing. "We just need to make sure it is safe first."

"Salamence, that isn't the point," Roberts responded clearly having had the discussion for quite a while.

"The Porygon 'Delta 2' called and let us know that LAS's attempt to save the recording devices had worked," Jack told the new arrivals clearly annoyed. "Apparently you had not mentioned that they were dying. Between that and the talking pokemon-Hackware creature that stole the data she's sure that she can get the 'upgrade'."

"I think that one pokemon having their entire structure altered is enough for one day," Serperior burbled drawing the attention of everyone. "So she can at bare minimum wait until tomorrow before continuing this line of reasoning."

"You actually learned Acid Armor," Janice said sighing at the still liquefied serpent. "Did you at least find a way to help with the 'attribute' project?"

"The recording program has survived and is an active LAS now?" the LAS asked getting a nod from the Team Lead. "Then we have a task for him. Analyzers work well as testing targets for these moves."

"That's basically all she's got ready so far," Gazimon added. "But it looks like she might be able to help if the digimon issue turns out to be as bad as it sounds right now."

"I'm serious about that structural alteration thing," Serperior told them all. "Alpha 45 has a bunch of TMs ready for the rest of you, but we should avoid another use of the Acid Armor one for now." He seemed to be starting to solidify again, and was clearly a bit uncomfortable with and distracted by the sensations that was producing.

"Right, here's what we're doing," Janice cut in strongly. "A-0, take Investigator Roberts and his assistant back into the Box to let their teams have a chance to use the TMs." She turned a harsh glare at Salamence. "That way your pokemon can get some tools to better assist with this project in a way we know works safely."

"We need to work on the new transmission method," the Porygon informed her. "The lack of transition currently present is causing some problems with most of us." It shot a glare at Gazimon, who had moved to aid his teammates in getting the snake pokemon comfortable.

The Troubleshooter Lead watched the same situation. "Do we need to practice with getting Serperior to Delta 2?" she asked dryly.

"No, I'll be fine," the serpent insisted. "Just want this one to wear off before trying again." He quickly checked the length and width of his coils in an attempt to match them to their prior sizes. "Huh, safer than I was thinking," he commented looking closer. "I'm stretching back to normal without even trying."

This statement caught the attention of Salamence. "Why would you worry about that?" she asked nervously, getting blank looks from the Troubleshooters.

"Because I might not have?" the Grass type asked in reply. "This is a digital alteration to me, just because it is mostly safe doesn't mean there isn't side effects." He blinked his unnatural blue eyes deliberately to emphasize the point they had been trying to get across to the Dragon/Flying pokemon.

She blinked and looked between the Starter and Trainer, seemingly noticing their eyes for the first time. "What did the rabbit mean about that weird switched thing with you two?" she asked shaken.

The LAS floated in front of the large pokemon. "Upon my creation I took over a Box whose Administrator had the ability to switch the bodies of their inhabitants," she started, earning incredulous looks from the Investigators. "I proceeded to attempt to gain as much information as I could about the workings of this ability using all of the inhabitants."

"We have checked to make sure Delta 2 isn't caught up in that kind of problem, right?" A-0 asked Janice quietly at the reminder of events, getting a strong nod.

"The Troubleshooter team learned of this state of affairs and arrived to stop me," the digital life form continued. "As with all creatures entering the Box I paired them off and switched their forms. Shawn with Serperior, and A-0 with Gazimon. I had swarms of Analyzer drones that I was able to produce using the direct energy connection of the Administrator Porygon." She created one and had it slowly begin to approach Salamence. "Should they latch onto a pokemon they take control over its body, making it subordinate to me. Shawn was unable to effectively clear out this swarm in the same way Serperior could do so, and the team used an emergency exit to escape the Box. I did not have time to reverse the switch as I had been doing for normal Box extractions."

"We then went to the medical Box so Delta 2 could try and fix it," Shawn continued. "Unfortunately she wasn't as familiar with the method Charlie 80 was using to switch bodies, so she wasn't sure about how to do it properly, and given that we were switched once, we didn't want to take the chance of changing back and then just ending up switched again when we returned."

"But if you were still in each other's bodies, but shaped like yourselves, then you could fight these things while not getting switched again," Jack realized looking quite shaken himself. "If you did that why not fix it afterword?"

"Because all of that messed up their code," Gazimon answered. "It messed it up badly enough that it wasn't safe to turn them back then, and by now its worked itself out so those bodies are basically theirs now."

"They used the altered bodies to confront me, and I had all the luck in the worlds that Charlie 80 asked them to spare me," the LAS concluded quietly, staring at Salamence.

The dragon looked between the two Troubleshooters with swapped eyes, her trainer, the LAS, and finally settled to looking at the Analyzer. "I still want it," she quietly said in the face of the reality of the situation. "I want to help my trainer. I'm willing to go that far, and risk that much, to be able to give him the tools you have." Her gaze rose to meet that of the digital life form. "I want to be more than just the muscle when things get tough."

"I want to be a Armaldo, but I know I need to wait for a lot of things to happen first before I have the chance," Grant said joining the conversation and attracting confused looks. "Before I worked with this group I never expected it to even be an option. They could probably help me with it, but I know it isn't a priority." He shook his head. "Wait a bit, see if we can find out if it is safe, or even find another way to do this kind of thing that works more safely. We have time."

"We also have more people with the abilities now that the listening devices are getting saved using it," Kabutops added to his trainer's statement. "Let them have a chance to work out what they are doing first. Then we can look into doing it for you too."

"Let's see what my sister has in her TM lineup," A-0 added. "I'm not sure what other projects she has worked on, so ask if there is anything like that." It floated over to the pad considering. "Metang, are we ready for the next group?"

"Affirmative. Shall I re-add a minor flash to the process?" the mechanical pokemon asked, getting a shouted 'Yes' from Shawn's entire team.


	26. 2-08 Counterattack

\--- Counterattack ---

The various members of the expanded Troubleshooter and Investigation teams were doing their best to work out time to both train on new moves and keep up with any developments with tracking down Team Upload. As a consequence of the more unusual aspects of their new abilities Shawn's team was mostly sitting inside of the semisolid form of their largest member. This was agreed to be a good place for the serpent like trainer, dripping plant pokemon, and still training digimon to stay while A-0, Metang, and the LAS installed the new monitor systems along the upper portion of one wall.

"Energy use at the Pokemon Center is well above normal," Janice told the Investigators while setting up the new displays to connect to her station. "According to the dev team's analysis of the increase we are looking at between three and five Hackware rechargers present and active in the system."

"Why is the range so wide?" Jack asked while helping to setup one of three new stations for general purpose work. "Is it that hard to figure out how many from the power they use?"

"If the devices are purely in use for charging extant Hackware then there are five of them, if they are primarily operating to construct new Dos units then there are only three," the LAS answered using one tendril to snake cabling along a specialized conduit for the new mounting.

"It's an increase from looking like two feeding a swarm," Shawn added looking over data using the Pokedex. "Which means they either made one more and are stepping up production, or they're moving a small army into that server to launch an attack."

"So we are preempting it then?" Serperior asked easily. "Because I'm rather interested in their reaction to a literal wave of dangerous serpent." His body rippled as he spoke the word 'wave'.

"My team is staying back to handle Box issues, right?" Quagsire asked eying the new automated translation unit Grant was helping to setup near the center of the room.

"That is our plan for the moment," Investigator Roberts agreed. "Serperior is skilled at clearing out the quantities of Dos we are expecting to encounter, and is one of the toughest pokemon we have available right now. Between his experience, the digital capabilities of A-0 and Gazimon, and our own teams, we should be well equipped." He nodded at Jack to indicate both of them were planning on going.

"The main plan is to get inside as quietly as we can, then lock down transport in and out as much as the two of us are able," A-0 told the Water/Ground pokemon while pointing at Gazimon. "Then we capture as many of the people and pokemon we can in the server, contain any Hackware we encounter, and deal with any reinforcements."

"I want your team on standby to be our own set of reinforcements," Janice added testing out the upper row of three monitors. "We will be trying to stay in contact with the assault team, but only as much as we can without interfering with the block to keep Upload in the server." She watched as the LAS finished running the final set of cables. "Hopefully this upgrade actually helps with that part."

"Have we made any progress with finding out where they are launching these attacks from yet?" Kabutops asked tapping at the first of the new consoles to look over data as best he could.

"Records of the site coordinates do not match for all locations," Metang told the fossil pokemon while they continued preparing the transport to the target site. "There are no less than two-" The pokemon cut off and turned to look Investigator Roberts in the eyes. "Pokemon Center attack site matches one of the recovered attack origins."

\---

Alice's arrival had produced only grumbling and distrust among the grunts planning the eventual raid on the Pokemon Center they were technically using as a staging area for more minor raids. The blocky Hackware units managing the new production were easily distracted by her presence, and switching over to making more Dos to train was throwing all of the plans for future raids into chaos. "How soon can we expect to return to normal?" the local leader asked her as she approached the three nodes that were steadily making more of the two dimensional creatures.

"Unfortunately we cannot expect it," the Tech replied sympathetically. "Digital Storage Solutions is on the hunt for us now, and we are hoping to move to other sites. Locations we can compromise without making it clear that the system has been altered." One of the Stone class Hackware hovered closer. "Absol has advised we pull everyone out of these now." The scoffing of the leader told Alice that she held the pokemon's opinion higher than they did. The data recovered from the DSS pokemon storage system was frightening, containing the remnants of multiple digital life forms far more advanced than they had seen before. Combined with the presence of a near Legendary digital creature that nearly caught their teammate and it painted a grim picture.

"What, did we miss some of the trackers that police station tried to trick us into taking along?" he said looking over the simple hovering creature. "We double checked with these guys and tried to setup the standard chargers." He then frowned and nodded at one cluster of Hackware. "Something was odd about the power setup there. The only outlet that worked was inside this vault area they had for the real good stuff."

Alice paused to consider that option. "I hope not, Executive Thomas wants to at least attempt the final raid here before abandoning the site," she told the leader uneasily. "We are working on higher quality Hackware using new information. With any luck we can send those to hold this site while your attack occurs."

"That would be pretty good," the lead grunt agreed. "Although the Crabs do make good muscle even outside these worlds. Keep them away from anything that hits Dark types hard and they're good. Having a Stone around to do some damage to Fighting types is a plan I've been itching to try."

"They aren't that great at offensive combat," Alice cautioned. "We were hoping to hit a TM production facility, but they apparently have moved their digital storage offsite until things calm down." She looked over the slowly growing masses of red polygons. "Has there been a lot of evolutions from the Hackware here?"

"A few Dos collecting into Vir trios, but only two final evolutions. One trio was getting into fights with another, so a new Crab from the winners and a Worm out of the losers." The few other highest rank Hackware emerged from the piles at hearing their names. "I'd love to have more, but with the orders to make Dos instead of recharge our Hackware there is less capacity to evolve them," the leader complained. "Honestly we can't continue much longer. We really need more of the bigger ones to manage the swarms."

Alice looked over the masses again. Hackware for the most part didn't even reach the intelligence of simple pokemon, with only the specialized top tier units even hitting that low level. They had fairly basic programming that vaguely mimicked living things when given no task, but she was well aware how much of that was simple self maintenance and security features. Personally she felt that the Stone class was close to their Porygon, only needing a bit more intelligence to be worth the same as those ever more rare pokemon while being much easier to replace. Digital security systems, even confused and broken from being made into living things, were still dangerous enough to require disposable forces to fill in gaps and protect their irreplaceable assets.

"Hey, boss man, we managed to get the video system hooked up," another grunt called out from the main area of the idyllic little building that this digital world had been shaped into. "We even found a stash of Gym battles in the stuff from the police station."

"These guys will keep, let's go see a couple of real battles," the leader suggested with a smile. Alice nodded and followed the two into the makeshift living area setup inside the artificial world. This one was a green cheery field surrounding a fairly typical Pokemon Center. They had only found some minor environmental hazards for a security system, and the place as a whole was on the smaller side.

"Got a Dark type leader of all things," another grunt called out to the small group as they returned. The five of them assembled on the available benches to watch such an unusual occurrence. "Leader David Grim vs some guy named Shawn. Not too long ago from the date."

The start of the video brought looks of disbelief as the Gym leader called out a rather insane set of rules for a simple fourth Badge match, but the thing that made Alice's blood run cold was the piercing red eyes that had been haunting her since they recovered the image from the surviving Crab.

"What the heck is that?" the grunt who had gotten them asked pointing at the rabbit monster in the short moment before the three headed dragon blasted the location.

"Wow, really?" the last of the grunts asked incredulous. "They expect people to believe that thing is real?" The explosion of purple flames was smaller than the one Alice had seen, but filled with ominous smoke.

"The Shawn guy's eyes look wrong," the leader commented. "Like he's some pokemon trying to pretend he's human."

As the fight continued with much the same combat as it started the grunt who selected the video began to look unsure. "The second fight isn't going to be very long," he commented looking at the time.

"No," Alice found herself saying. "It won't be." Her frightened words drew a lot of attention. "That's the DSS combat team that hit us."

The remainder of the fight was watched with a lot more quiet consideration now that it wasn't just some random trainer. The final crash of the Hydreigon in the middle of the ruined arena was particularly nerve wracking.

"His Serperior killed a Crab in a single blow," the Tech told the group still sounding worried as the massive snake pokemon emerged onto the shattered battlefield. The actions in the video made it quite clear that it was not a fluke. "Just the slash part of that attack," she informed the rest of the group quietly as the serpent ended the fight in one movement.

"That thing is coming after us?" the leader of the group asked seriously.

"Along with a Porygon capable of locking down transport in and out of digital worlds that has been keeping a handle on over 200 of them," she informed them all.

"Right, start that video up again. I want to watch this trainer closer," the leader ordered looking worried. "Everyone be on guard, that was the most lopsided Gym match I've seen in a while, and not in the way it should be."

\---

Team Upload Porygon Unit 1 was nervous. Absol was currently the sole member of their organization that could translate between the three different communication methods. Pokemon like herself, humans like Alice, and Hackware like the Stones. She was not a combat viable Porygon, being the first of the high end units made. The fate of Unit 3 was making her paranoid, as actual digital opponents were something they had not truly dealt with before.

"How are they doing 1?" Alice asked while a bit of scramble to prepare for possible evacuation occurred. The Porygon looked over the three combination recharging and production units. Dos units tended to take a couple of days to reach the development point where Vir could form out of a sufficiently large swarm. However, the current masses were approaching the point where Vir might start forming out of sheer density of Dos, which always resulted in sub-par trios. Going to the next stage required active training and specialization of the Vir trios, usually possible in a dedicated week of direct work.

"Continued operation of production aspect is not recommended," she told the Tech despite not being truly comprehended. Then she switched the devices back to recharging mode and took in the settling of the swarms.

"Anderson keeps telling Thomas that we need a training world for them," the Hackware Technician complained at the action. "Stones can't just send them anywhere without leaving a trail, and a bunch of chargers spread across dozens of digital worlds won't work for getting enough of them." She then sighed and walked closer to the three clusters in facsimiles of healing devices, the largest power connections inside this digital world.

Something shifted, small and almost beyond notice, and Unit 1 froze in paranoid fear. She began to turn rapidly scanning for any possible reason for the change. "Unit 1? What's wrong?" Alice asked, just as the ability to transport into and out of the system clamped shut. The Hackware swarms sensed this change, and seeing their reaction the Tech brought out her computer to check what was happening. "No, not already. Attack! We're under attack," she called out. "Hackware form up, follow me. Unit 1, keep close and work on getting us past the lockdown."

The Porygon was well aware that was easier said than done. She could now see with horrifying clarity how Unit 3 had felt that staying behind to get everyone else out was the best option. Despite that she left it as plan C, after punching through herself and getting the Stones to try helping. The Porygon she was up against knew digital worlds, and given how her first efforts were going had probably seen more than she had. Small shifts in the layout of the system were spotted and countered immediately. An attempt to pick at the edges of the barrier changed into a distracted moment of simply marveling at the details of the barrier. Even a quick brute force attempt to make a new sub-area that would be outside of the area of effect simply revealed that the block was being actively scaled to the size of the digital world.

While she made her efforts to get them out of there Alice was leading them towards the grunts. The sounds of scrambling pokemon were clearly present and Unit 1 spotted worried Upload pokemon scrambling to avoid a mass of green and yellow liquid that filled one of the doors out of the main area. Another had a full grown Salamence forcing its way through, and well trained Flygon completed the nightmare of a situation that had appeared out of nowhere.

"Dos, intercept attacks," Alice shouted with a hint of fear taking in the high end raid. "Vir, fire support. Stones, get some barriers up between us. Other units go for the dragons." Unit 1 did not need any instructions to stop playing around with getting the group out. Plans A and B were gone, which meant that she wasn't getting out of this one. "Unit 1, find a way to get us out. All of us," the Tech emphasized. The Porygon would definitely try, but priority was on the rest of the forces. They couldn't get out without her.

She refocused her efforts while the various Upload forces attempted to hold off three different high end pokemon. The somehow liquefied Serperior was doing a good job of distracting everyone as it boxed them into a smaller and smaller area by spreading out over a larger area than its prior form would allow. After a moment another horrible realization struck her, as the responses were simply too fast for one other Porygon to manage, which meant she was up against two foes keeping them trapped.

Looking around desperately she spotted a Worm Hackware staying near the edge of combat and occasionally spitting balls of energy towards their foes. "Worm, assist with exit procedure," she shouted to the creature inspired. The infiltration unit had independent transport methods that could get past most barriers. With some work she could use that to get the others out, and a bit of luck would allow her to follow after them.

"A-0 they're trying to get out," the Grass typed blob shouted having heard her cry. "Trying to use the Ghosts." She could see the grunts tense at the sound of a comprehensible statement out of the pokemon.

Looking at the state of her own side Unit 1 began to plan the evacuation. She'd start with the grunts whose pokemon were already out of the fight and work her way to the Hackware. A part of her wanted to send Alice first, but the Technician was clearly trying to aid in their escape using her own computer system. "Stones, try and get us a place to get out of here," Alice instructed the Hackware, taking some defenses from the fight but giving a small opening that Unit 1 quickly took advantage of by tearing a portal out of the digital world. "Right, everybody out, and that includes you Unit 1."

"Hurry," the Porygon simply said as the Hackware surged to keep the opposing pokemon back while the others escaped. Pokemon were recovered, small items within reach grabbed, and portions of the Dos streamed outward trying to continue to block any attacks on the fleeing grunts. The slack in the combat capacity was quickly apparent, and Unit 1 could only see one option to both get all of the rest out of there and prevent their foes from simply following through the hole.

\---

Tech Alice stumbled out of the portal barely keeping her footing as yet another Upload Porygon apparent decided self sacrifice was the best option. The gateway then destroyed itself in a bright flash, hopefully without taking the pokemon with it. "Find a communications line and start getting us a way back," she told the remaining Stones dejectedly. They slowly floated off to do just that while the grunts checked over their pokemon. "If they can get into there without us noticing then they can follow us here quickly enough."

"I managed to get the video," one of the grunts commented holding a bag that they had apparently prepared for just this kind of evacuation.

"How long do we wait for the Porygon?" the leader asked, earning a shake of the head. "Right, we need to let everyone else know that they are attacking our outer sites."

"If Absol isn't already in a panic," another grunt commented hefting a pair of bags.

"What are our losses?" Alice asked looking nervously at the swarm of Dos. What had been three oversized groups was reduced to a collection small enough to clump together in a single formation. The Vir were similarly cut down, going from almost a dozen trios to just fifteen she could count, and a number of those were awkwardly attempting to reshuffle from lost members. Only two Stones were present, with all of the other higher level Hackware either covering the final escape or destroyed.

"Better than they could have been," the remaining grunt said moving two more bags. "The Serperior apparently is like Absol," he added with a shiver. "Only he can do that leaf thing that swept the Dos." Small cuts were present on all of them from the light impact of charged leaves, nothing big enough to scar but more than enough to show the area effected by the attacks.

"I'm just glad we had this thing to warn us," the grunt with the video commented hefting the bag for emphasis while walking towards the set of power lines the Stones were clustering around. "We really need to get some recordings of what they can do distributed."

"Should have done that earlier," Alice quietly berated herself. "Did anyone spot where the dragons came from?"

"Spot? No, but I recognize the Salamence," the leader of the Grunts said as one Stone gave a beeping signal to hurry up. "Investigator Roberts has apparently found some support that's up to our level."

The statement kept them all a bit shaken as they fled closer to home.

\---

"Successfully captured another Porygon, a 'Stone', and maybe a Worm," A-0 said looking nervously at the containment systems it had made over the mentioned creatures. The simple looking somewhat opaque crystals of alternating pink and blue were holding the first two easily, but nobody was sure that the last one couldn't manage to get back out somehow. "The Crab fought to the death and the smaller ones outright self destructed."

"I don't really want to talk with them around," Gazimon said looking tired. "The 'Worms' are spies, and I'm not sure that any of them aren't able to at least try and get out."

"I should have some secure storage setup that will stop the Porygon at least," Investigator Roberts told the group looking at the Hackware uneasily. "The kind of thing we are using for the ones we captured without their pokeballs."

"Stone variant is no more capable individually than the Porygon," the LAS noted as data flashed across her surface from active scans of the various creatures. "Worm variant however requires active defenses such as this to contain."

"We need a better way of containing things," Gazimon noted looking uneasily at the crystal formations. "I've seen a thing like this before, but it was a lot better made and I'm not even sure who made it anymore. I'm also thinking that most of the hardware was setup in the walls of that place."

"Putting them into a Box would be counterproductive," Shawn said looking over Serperior. "From what we found on the other end of that portal they still needed to have a connection to some sort of data infrastructure in order to travel. I'm guessing that is how you've been doing it?" he asked the Investigators.

"Yeah," Jack answered somewhat distracted. "Although if we could just use some pokeballs on these Hackware I'd feel a lot better about trying to keep them contained."

"Trying to use your own liquefied body is an awkward method," the snake pokemon complained. "Ugh, not letting another Crab have free shots at my liquid me again."

"Honestly it was scary to watch," Vibration told the Grass type, flinching slightly as the new translation device repeated his words. "Both because having someone fighting you on the inside is scary, and because it kinda looked like you were trying to eat them alive." The Flygon shuddered at the thought, and Serperior looked uneasy at the comparison.

"No, I was not doing that," the snake pokemon said just a bit too deliberately. "LAS, any new insights on Hackware now that we have them right here?" he asked the digital life form clearly changing the topic.

The LAS bobbed in the air before answering. "Hackware stability is quite high at this stage, while is much lower at the smaller scales," she informed the group. "Internal systems require a degree of specialization to function properly, Vir stage splits capacity too much to function effectively."

"Guys, talking in front of the enemy," Gazimon told the group watching the Worm closely. "The smarter than it looks enemy," he continued unhappily as the thin digital life form froze with his words. "They aren't like corruption at all are they?"

"No," the LAS agreed uncertainly. "At this stage they approach the intelligence, but not the capability, of a Porygon. Sadly they seem to be genuinely loyal." She then turned to Jack. "Like myself they are incompatible with standard pokeballs. The development team has been working on a modification to handle my-" The digital life form cut herself off and turned with a worried expression to face Investigator Roberts. "I had forgotten. It is the Analyzer fabrication components that produce the most incompatibility. A pokemon transformed into my kind will likely not be safe to use their original pokeball."

"Safe or able?" he asked her seriously looking at Salamence's ball.

"Safe, the connection would still be present, but the conversion process cannot properly transform those structures," she replied sadly. "Until a modification for pokeballs is available that change cannot be an option."

"Did we recover any of their own Hackware storage devices?" Janice asked. "Something to work off of?"

"We have so far gotten them for the lesser Hackware during their attacks, they didn't bother picking them up after using them," Shawn replied. "The Crabs though were simply converted into an easier to store form. Basically they were able to make themselves into pokeball sided forms temporarily."

"There was some other equipment present as well, light stuff that they could have gotten out with given just a bit of forewarning," Serperior noted well on the way to re-solidifying. "Actually it looked sort of like they were already getting ready to leave. Maybe some of that would have stuff to contain Hackware so they don't end up having to explain clouds of polygons floating around them."

Investigator Roberts sighed heavily at the revelation. "Please keep working on a way to modify pokeballs," he asked the LAS sincerely. "Since the three creatures we picked up out of the police digital world are doing fine with their changes, Salamence has been adamant that we at least keep looking into that option."

"It would also be nice to try and capture these things," Jack said pointing at the Stone. "If they are that smart then we should at least be trying to do that." He then looked uneasily at the Porygon. "Then again we still haven't figured out what to do with the Porygon they were using yet. That kind of skill set isn't exactly the safest thing to leave loose."

"It is a big issue with former criminal pokemon," Roberts agreed. "Many of them are genuinely fond of their trainers, and more than willing to continue helping in that kind of work." Gazimon looked away from everyone nervous. "These creatures are even less understood, and the quantity of their unevolved forms we're encountering is worrying. I'd say your about the only place that even understands these kind of creatures enough to do it."

That had all of the Troubleshooters looking uncomfortable. "I'll speak with management about setting up a Box," Janice declared. "Hopefully Charlie 13 can give us a better way of stopping them from escaping out of one."


	27. 2-09 Liquid Learning

\--- Liquid Learning ---

"So how is Acid Armor working for you?" Alpha 45 asked the group as they arrived to allow Serperior to use the facility created specifically to train that move. "Or are you here for an update on these three?" Behind her three jellyfish digital life forms floated, each of them notably smaller than the original LAS. The three former recording devices had eventually settled on the names Al, Be, and De. Their given reason for skipping the letter 'c' was to honor one of their lost siblings.

"Al looks purple and Be is golden," Gazimon noted pointing out the main differences between the three, which clearly resembled the changes that had happened to the Analyzers during their last trip.

"Production of sensor units of proper attribute has been greatly increased by the change," Al told the digimon, his voice self assured. "Additionally, basic testing of other adaptations related to attributes are easier to identify."

"Al wanted to get around our agreement to disable the conversion process and place it outside of our control," Be noted in a dry voice that made her sound a bit like Janice. "Luckily the Viral attribute had no impact on that functionality."

"Not the full conversion process! Just the part that let the sensors draw power from a target," the purple jellyfish countered.

"Be tried to setup a number of her drones strategically around Al for 'security' while he rechecked his own drones capabilities," De said clearly upset with both of their siblings.

"Well as nice as it is to hear the three of you are feeling better," Serperior started clearly holding in laughter. "I'm really here to work on my new capabilities." He then looked somewhat nervously at Alpha 45. "I was also sort of wondering if it was possible for me to end up eating something by enveloping it while liquid?" he asked clearly trying to make it sound like a casual question.

"Ah, yes, that part," the Porygon nervously replied. "As it happens the pokemon that can naturally learn that move tend to hunt their prey by simply using their less than solid nature to force them into their bodies. So yes, you do gain the ability to eat in that manner by knowing the move." She turned to look at her three new assistants. "How about you three go ahead back to the attribute facility?" The digital life forms nodded in response.

"How combat viable are they?" Shawn asked as the three moved off towards the buildings.

"Worse than LAS," the Administrator told him. "Just because the conversion made them stable doesn't mean they are up to par. Part of why I went through with the attribute modification was to see if I could help their recovery along while I was at it." She then looked seriously at the slightly molten form of Serperior. A-0 had not accompanied Shawn's team this time, and she wondered what her own sibling was doing while his normal teammates were doing this training. "You're worried about Acid Armor then?"

"I like the ability, but honestly in practice this is almost as big of a change as what LAS can do to pokemon," the snake pokemon replied looking at one of his leafy hands. "I'm having to rework a lot of my skills, and I definitely need to get some time with someone who knows how to make yourself solid while using it to get my Slam fully working again. I'm hoping you have someone who can do that, but a Vaporeon shouldn't be too hard to find if you don't."

"It's actually a fairly common problem, especially after you don't need the TM's pattern anymore," Alpha 45 informed him. "We have been making up a guide of those on the side to possibly include with the TM." She looked thoughtfully at the building they were nearing quickly. "The researchers working with me are suggesting that since this is such a strange move to put into this format, and with how many small issues there are with it, we might want to make a new kind of move training kit for it instead of just the typical TM format. They're already trying to think up names for it."

"Ah, I think that might be for the best," Serperior said sympathetically. "I really do need to do this extra work with your testing setup to be able to more safely use this particular move."

"Yes, going for a more in depth method at least lets us distribute it," the Porygon replied. "It is still disappointing to have it turn out to be such a tricky change to handle after you learn it."

\---

"So, what are you thoughts on LAS's ability to change pokemon?" Salamence questioned Grant's team quietly, clearly fishing for allies in her goal.

"For obvious reasons I was the first she took control over," Kabutops told the Investigator's pokemon as they went over another attack site. "The device her programming was operating was attached to me after all." He itched at a spot on his arm. "Now that we know what else the Analyzers can do I'm a bit worried about that. It wasn't an uninterrupted time connected to one of them, and everyone was checked out for any contamination afterwards, but I'm still uneasy with the whole thing."

"But wouldn't being able to do more for your team be a nice thing?" Salamence asked, still quite hung up on getting the transformation.

"Uh huh, maybe we should just give her to Delta 2 and let the Porygon make whatever improvements she wants," Quagsire complained. "I know she's just waiting to give me a full human language package."

"So, she might be able to give me parts of it?" Salamence asked sounding hopeful.

"Roberts," Kabutops called out to the Investigator thoroughly fed up. "What do you normally use Salamence for anyway?"

"Usually she's only out when I need a heavy hitter," Roberts admitted. "This is honestly the longest I've needed her in months. Usually its Growlithe's helping me with her nose."

The fossil pokemon nodded strongly, clearly having expected that sort of answer. "You want to have something to do more of the time," he said to the Dragon/Flying type. "To help out with the day to day stuff once all of this is over."

"Yes," she admitted. "I'm the last of our main battle team to stay with him, and that's mostly because dragons are easy to keep in solid shape. If I could do more than just fight then it wouldn't be just waiting all the time and training when we can to keep me somewhat in shape."

"Can't say I know what that's like," Quagsire told the pokemon. "Being on a fossil hunter's team is mostly sitting around waiting for them to finish whatever tricky little thing they are doing, with the occasional request to do something fiddly that you can manage with your abilities. Then Grant's had us training the fossil pokemon we ended up bringing back." She eyed Kabutops while saying the latter.

"Humans seem to value the ability to speak with them," Dugtrio suggested bobbing its three heads. "I am quite sure that Delta 2 is trying to develop an easy method of giving that skill."

"If it is that easy to give the ability he might as well do that for Growlithe. She's the one who he's already talking to," Salamence replied bluntly.

"She's partially mad that she couldn't use the Psychic TMs that A-45 had," Smile the Gourgeist told the group. "Turns out most work on making those things focuses on combat moves, so it was about the only option for looking at stuff that was ready for use." He turned to look the dragon in the eyes. "If you want to try some unusual situations that badly I can give you the Ghost type for a bit," he offered darkly, only to look slightly uneasy at how the pokemon seemed to be considering the offer. "Is just being yourself really that bad?" he asked causing Grant to harshly flinch from where he was approaching the group.

"I, I don't want to be someone else or anything," Salamence countered. "I just look up to my trainer, and want to help him with the stuff he does."

"Sounds like she's closer to you than to me, Kabutops," Grant said to his fossil. "She's seen something that impresses her and wants to have it too, rather than actually wanting to be different in a way."

"Are we going to end up with an Anorith you bribe into switching bodies anytime soon?" Quagsire asked seeming equally annoyed with both of the ways the conversation was heading.

"DSS already knows how to make a human body into the shape of a pokemon they have available," her trainer taunted clearly joking. "Although given how quiet Deepstone Labs have been? I'm half thinking they found a claw fossil somewhere and want to surprise me," he continued conspiratorially causing the Water/Ground pokemon to sigh heavily.

"You do know about the pokeball problem, right?" Kabutops asked Salamence looking thoughtful over his trainer's comparison. Then he shook his head. "Actually never mind that, you do know this is something you can't take back right?" He pointed a claw at the fossil hunter. "I've had a chance to see what being human is like, and when I had to deal with the actual differences that created I didn't like them."

"So this place is just a land of temptations then?" she asked in response, earning a set of uneasy looks. "Because it really is starting to look like it what with the piles of TMs and abilities I've only heard about in legends."

"I can see that, but most labs are like that really," Grant told the pokemon. "I'm quite sure that there's at least one person back at Deepstone that not only knows I'd be fine being a fossil pokemon myself, but might even try and modify our revival devices to make it happen. Not to mention the stories about traveling trainers who run into Legendary pokemon and end up with a bit more weirdness in their life afterward." He sighed and looked over the digital world around them. "It is the kind of worlds we live in."

\---

"This is the kind of world I live in now," Gazimon said to himself while watching Serperior going through some somewhat more advanced Acid Armor maneuvers with Sandslash. "The worst part is how close it gets to the digital world. A mole thing and giant snake fighting? Perfectly normal back there." He looked over at Alpha 45. "I kinda regret spending so much time looking up random human world stuff on the internet. Too much of it ended up just confusing me more."

"Maybe it will help if we ever get into contact with your human world," Shawn suggested carefully keeping track of his starter. "How's he doing?" he asked the local Administrator.

"I was right about how him getting his body back to normal quickly was a bit of difficulty with learning the move," she informed the trainer. "The TM pattern is decaying a bit faster than normal, and he's only partially learned it so far." She watched as the snake pokemon extended a number of thin tendrils of himself to try and pin the shifting sand pokemon. "We're used to a bit of difficulty with the pokemon who learn it outside of the Box, and he's falling into that category fairly solidly."

"So is he going to need to use it again to learn the move?" Gazimon asked letting out a puff of purple flames thoughtfully.

"Possibly, it depends on how it goes from here," Alpha 45 told them. "For this move how comfortable you are with liquefying matters a lot with how quickly you can learn it."

"So far he hasn't had too much of his body end up separated from itself," Shawn said sounding a touch worried. "How risky is it for that to happen to him while he's still learning this?" he asked quietly.

"The move does not actually let you go back to being fully solid unless there is enough of you to fill out your body," she responded. "One of the better side effects of learning this move is that you actually regenerate any major physical wounds. It isn't a well known aspect of Vaporeon, but that's basically the only species who normally learns it where anyone would take note given it is a difference they have from the other Eevee evolutions." She nodded towards Sandslash. "We've actually been talking with Delta 2 about using it for pokemon who lost limbs, but she isn't confident that it will work for that in practice."

A bit of tension that the trainer seemed to be hiding left him, only noticeable now that it was gone. "So as long as we can collect enough of him he will be fine?" Shawn asked trying to make it sound joking.

"Yes, although he will be quite hungry while recovering," the Administrator clarified. "Actually it is really quite surprising how small the amount is you'd need to keep someone alive in this state. A bit bigger than the pokemon's head is the general requirement." This attempt to reassure seemed to bring the tension back instead. "Although destroying parts of their liquefied bodies is a lot harder than it sounds. They are still as tough as they are normally, and on top of that physical blows are even less capable of producing injury."

"It is a brother's job to worry," Gazimon joked. "I'm sure that if Shawn had learned the move he'd be just as upset."

"For the record, I am the brother in that analogy that typically causes the other to worry," Shawn countered with a more collected tone. "I'm just off my game a bit because we have had new opportunities."

"'Analogy'?" the digimon questioned still joking. "You are twins aren't you?"

"I'm not sure how exactly that category does or does not apply given your body situation," Alpha 45 said sounding genuinely confused. "I mean making someone your brother symbolically tends to only be a bit of sharing of blood, not outright switching your bodies around." Her statement bringing the attention of the training pokemon and slightly shocking the trainer.

"I haven't considered that side of things," Shawn admitted sounding concerned. "You've apparently looked into metaphysical stuff a bit, any speculation?"

"Um, wait. Oh. Let me get some scans of you then," she replied opening a pane to scan the trainer, and another moments later to look at his quickly arriving starter.

\---

Investigator Roberts had moved to look over some unusual remains of the current storage area, leaving Grant's team to keep an eye on a rather rabid security system. He had also brought Salamence inside with him to protect against the slightly more powerful internal defenses, and possibly to also give the team a break from the dragon.

"So how serious is the worry that you're already part LAS?" Quagsire asked her fossil teammate.

"Not anything noticeable right now, but hearing it is something she can do has me wondering about it," Kabutops replied. "I've spoken with Delta 2 about it as something to check and she's going over the data from when they ran all of us from the Box through a medical check. She's going to get back to me as soon as she has some answers."

"She's pretty good about getting back to people on that kind of thing," Grant reassured his pokemon. "She's actually managed to find a couple sources on particularly strong psychics who actually end up evolving into Kadabra. It isn't entirely clear if they had any issues with being human before, but it was a starting point to find a couple of other cases of human to pokemon evolutions. One of those even matched the sudden realization that they wanted a tail." Their trainer sounded quite excited about these results.

"Maybe I should be asking how serious you were about our old coworkers trying to 'help' with your tail issue?" his Water/Ground type asked with dry sarcasm. Then she buried her face in her hands. "And now I'm calling them 'our' coworkers like I was actually working for that company. Maybe this is a job full of temptations to you two but to me this is a bunch of new responsibilities."

"Given I was just the current fossil before this started I don't think I can really compare," Kabutops told his teammate. "Being second in command to whichever one of you is actually in charge is working out, and while I wouldn't mind maybe trying to be a trainer someday I am fine with our new jobs."

"'Whichever one of you'?" Quagsire asked darkly looking over at Grant to confirm that he too questioned the statement, then glared at the questioning look that met her more direct one. "I am not the leader of this team," she declared, quite clearly ignoring the grumbling disagreement of Dugtrio, the incredulous smile of Kabutops, and her trainer's deferential nod of agreement with her declaration. "Right, let's just do another pass around this place."

"So do you think they will figure out the pokeball issue for LAS?" Dugtrio asked sounding serious. "Because she is our teammate and I don't like how she has to struggle with getting around without one."

"It sounds like they're getting a good start on it now that they got those things from the Upload base," Kabutops answered. "We probably aren't going to hear about it until it is entirely ready and then some to keep Salamence from getting even more antsy."

"Latest from the development teams is that they think they know what the exact problem part of her Analyzer makers is when it comes to storage, so modifying a ball that is already linked to a pokemon is probably going to come first," Grant told the group quietly. "So we aren't going to say anything until we already have one for LAS to use."

"So we know that part? Because if we know that I want to stop in Box 201 to check for those," his fossil replied equally quiet. "I want to know if there is any chance my body is messed up in that way."

\---

"How often are the two of you going to see Delta 2 about this whole mess?" Alpha 45 asked the pair of serpent eyed Grass types.

"At least once a week," they said in worried synchronization. "Sometimes more often lately since there's always been little things to double check."

"I was kinda afraid you'd say that," the Administrator said looking at Gazimon seriously. "She's probably looking at the change week to week, and forgetting to look over a longer time period. Although it might just be that I'm using a different scanner setup."

"So what is the problem you're seeing here?" Gazimon asked opening a pair of his own panes. "They look... Similar." He frowned at the immediate results.

"The energy patterns match some cases I have on file of adoption between species where the pokemon involved share a type. Those can result in unusual moves appearing as they adapt methods of energy manipulation natural to a different species, and as such are a good starting point for my TM research," the Porygon told him. "Both sides of such a situation will have minor to moderate changes in their overall energy expression."

"We are like that I take it?" the two continued in a single voice, sounding somewhat uneasy and clearly attempting to break apart from each other's speech.

"Um, worse. You two look like twins, energy similar enough to be mistaken for each other at a casual scan, but conditioning very different from each other along with minor details that cause major changes," she replied sounding uneasy at their focused gaze. "So Shawn's a human, and Serperior's a, well, Serperior, but both of you are about the same energy wise. Like if you could have a human who has a Serperior for a parent and a Serperior who had a human for a parent."

"That doesn't sound good," the digimon said looking over the data more carefully. "But this does look fairly normal to the older data A-0 has had me looking at for the two of them."

"Wait, it was serious about using us as examples of risky things to do?" the pair asked before looking at each other and nodding.

"How bad am I as far as this is concerned?" Serperior asked alone while Shawn remained deliberately quiet.

"Let me compare to the previous scans I have of you two," she told them opening more panes then growing very quiet. "Or maybe I've got this mess wrong." She then began to rapidly open and close a number of panes looking over data. "I have some old scans I managed to get from Delta 2 on the two of you, and there is not much difference in your energy patterns. To the extent that I just found a note clarifying that these are in fact scans of the two of you, and not just one of you." She looked at the pair critically. "How far back does your family tree meet?"

"There is no evidence of that!" the pair shouted clearly familiar with the accusation. "Our families are completely unrelated."

"If I ask Jack about that question he's going to be awkward isn't he?" Gazimon commented slyly.

"He started it with his starter," Shawn said at the same time as Serperior stated, "He started it with my sister."

"Doesn't that mean she considers Shawn her brother too?" the digimon asked now confused.

"She is yelling at us both enough for it to be a possibility," the snake pokemon confessed. "Still, not a big thing to worry about?"

"You are both not too much different from before, but I'd say you might need to be careful with some situations to not end up switched between human and Serperior," she told the pair sighing. "I could probably work out a pattern to let you do it at will if you wanted."

"I'm not that big a fan of legs to be honest," Serperior replied instantly while his trainer looked thoughtful over the idea.

"That would give both of us a custom TM ability," Shawn said mostly joking. "Don't sweat it, I'm able to do fine while human."

"Troubleshooters, we have questions," Be suddenly said from the entryway of the building, flanked by her two siblings. "Information on current Upload activities is limited in direct distribution-"

"We overheard that they have digital monster data and want to know if any of it that was left behind is available for research purposes," De interrupted getting directly to the point.

"We're going over the remains to see what can be done with it," Gazimon said tersely. "Charlie 13 in particular is trying to see if any of them can be revived."

"We were more thinking about how you saved us than anything," Al said bluntly. "If we can recover from what happened to us using code from something else maybe the same can be done for them."

"Unfortunately it isn't that simple," Shawn replied. "These digimon are all highly complex digital life forms, closer in function to pokemon than relatively simple creatures like yourselves."

"My brother is looking to see if any of them are complete enough that it would actually be putting a creature back together instead of making a new digimon out of the parts of dead ones," Alpha 45 cautioned sounding slightly disappointed with the trio.

"The very first thing we considered was trying to use my data to patch up some of the other Gazimon there," the present digital monster said sadly. "Thing is my code's been modified a lot to be a pokemon too, and there isn't enough of the ones we've got to be sure if it would work, or just mess up the data that's there worse."

"To put it simply we don't have enough of their bodies to make it work right now," Serperior finished. "Maybe if we had the larger part that was stolen, or knew as much about digital life manipulation as Upload apparently does, but not with what little we have now."

\---

"Fourth Badge placement match?" Bob asked disbelievingly once Executive Thomas had left the room. Their Hackware team was well used to only saying the important parts after the boss of Team Upload had finished his latest angry rant and left. "That Serperior is trained too well for a guy whose been only a three Badge trainer."

"That's what the tape is listed as," Alice unhappily told him, still a bit stressed from the rapid evacuation and retreat back to their main base. "Two one on one fights with specified pokemon for the first, so you know the whole thing was a mess from the start. Probably was actually a grudge match between the trainer and Gym Leader." She shook her head at the thought. "Also it turns out the rabbit monster is something called a Gazimon. Ever heard of one of those?"

Anderson and Absol both looked up sharply at the name. "'Gazimon', as in 'Gazi-mon'?" the developer asked getting a worried nod in reply. "Fascinating, apparently they are saying the file extension. I have a few remains of Gazi monsters within the data we recovered."

"Which means they already have access to a living example of these creatures," Absol muttered darkly. "A digital monster fully realized. No wonder it mistook me for just an advanced Hackware unit for a moment."

"We require better equipment," Anderson declared. "This simply is insufficient to catch up with their own infrastructure. Who knows what examples we missed during the raid, or worse that they have already revived." He brought up a wire frame projection of a large four legged creature. "The Gazi creatures are actually the least advanced of those we could possibly recover from our own portion."

"Most of the places that have anything like that are good enough to adapt to our attacks," Bob cautioned. "Some are even using Porygon to create their defense systems, and that always has more dangerous defenses."

"Sadly, we are running out of options," Absol informed them. "We simply need to minimize the level of disaster this big attack has on us to survive long enough for new options to appear."

"That sounds more like we can't survive if we don't raid for some better stuff," Alice said uneasily. "Is it really that bad?"

"I cannot see any disasters if we do not make a raid for better equipment that feature Hackware in them," the pokemon replied. "Which means there is likely some disaster that I cannot benefit from that destroys Team Upload." He then shook his head and looked at the others sympathetically. "No, more than that, there are no disasters after that point where I am part of Team Upload, so I will definitely be captured."

That implication alone was more than enough for them to get to work on finding a good target.


	28. 2-0A Protection Efforts

\--- Protection Efforts ---

"Emergency alert has arrived from high end electronics development lab. Digital world conversion has been detected on their high security storage system," Metang called out to the group in the middle of a discussion of another previous attack target they had just finished investigating. "Establishing connection now to intercept."

"Roberts, can we get any codes for the security systems?" Janice asked worried as Shawn's team prepared for combat.

"It might take a bit. Metang, try and get in contact with them once we're in there," the Investigator replied letting Salamence out to have her ready for immediate conflict. Jack's Flygon appeared next to her soon after and they all braced for the new travel method.

"Initial communication is already present. However, they have noted that their new security system was made with this form of attack in mind," the machine like pokemon said with a touch of worry. "It currently does not recognize any arrivals within 48 hours as valid arrivals. The system cannot be rendered non-hostile before the attack concludes."

"Damn, I'm guessing that also means this thing isn't going to be a pushover," Gazimon said darkly with a bit of a flinch.

"Right, we're keeping a lock on you for emergency exit," Janice declared. "Grant, keep your team ready as backup in case things go badly. Stay careful everyone, we can afford to lose the stuff in that system more than we can any of you getting hurt."

"Serp, deal with any swarms quickly. If it is advanced enough we might run into a bunch of pokemon level opponents, like the warehouse Guardians," Shawn cautioned his starter looking ready to fight alongside the pokemon.

"Connection is stable, communication lines stable, transport site located, initializing transfer," Metang informed the group before they vanished in a small white flash. Immediately afterward basic vital signs and scanner information began to stream in from the team to the six monitors now mounted on the wall.

"We're in, looks like an electronics factory in here," A-0 said over the communication line.

\---

The digital world they ended up inside seemed to be a large factory complex, with a mix of large production rooms and smaller storage rooms connected by corridors. The group could already see the torn up remains of a number of digital constructs, and possibly signs of the destruction of digital life forms. This was most clearly seen in the failing operation of the devices scattered inside the room as they either bound up around damaged components or ran out of material to work with.

"Fighting seems to have already started," Shawn said unhappily. "Let's try and follow the damage."

"You have been taking note of things that formed in the digital worlds we've been checking, right?" Gazimon asked looking at the production equipment. "Because the warehouse group has a storage sphere maker that I've heard people in the cafeteria talking about like they wanted to use them outside the digital world."

"The storage spheres have only partial mass negation. There are plenty of better storage options already available to us made out in the physical world," A-0 told him while scanning the devices around them. "However that is a good point. The conversion process seems to also be creating usable devices that are not tied to any prior programming or content of the storage systems."

Their discussion cut off at the sound of clacking claws down the corridor ahead. Moving seriously they found a small mechanical digital life form rapidly moving in their direction, and immediately behind it was a larger creature clearly intent on its destruction. They did not have time to make out the smaller one before misshapen claws of what appeared to be solder shredded it, the large bipedal bird-lizard creature attacking the other ferociously. The small dinosaur's body was made of a collection of printed circuit boards of various designs held together by more lumps of silvery metal, with solid orange eyes that looked at them with malice.

Serperior responded by sending a wave of vines to entangle the digital life form, flinching slightly at the sparks of electricity that surged from the creature's body as it began to violently tear itself free. The sound of more claws approaching then changed the reaction to the hostile digital life form, with the vines going from simply restraining to attempting to crush the creature. "I think we found the security systems," the snake pokemon said to his team as two more of the creatures emerged from side paths.

"I don't think 'kill everything for 48 hours' is a good security plan," Gazimon said looking back to make sure they weren't being flanked while the two Dragon typed pokemon moved forward to aid Serperior in fighting these enemies.

"No, not if they cannot recognize the other inhabitants of their digital world," A-0 agreed looking over the digital life forms. "They are completely feral right now, only able to see each other as allies. I don't think it is safe to establish a transport lockdown on this world, too much chance for them to corner and kill the Upload forces." It paused for a moment as the three creatures shattered from the pokemon's attacks. "I've identified preparations for an exit transport, that should be them."

They moved quickly, hitting three more scattered security programs along the way. They soon found clearer signs of combat and rapidly raided storage rooms, with many examples of items left behind or damaged while dealing with combat. Just beyond these rooms they spotted the swarming red polygons of Dos floating around a team of six Upload trainers, including both of the techs that had been on the storage system raids. "Oh, yes. Just what we needed," Bob called out spotting them. "DSS here already."

"Are we getting lumped in with you guys?" Vibration the Flygon asked looking somewhat confused on which of the two forces to go after.

"Go for Upload first," Shawn informed the group taking the lead. "A-0 contain them-" He was cut off by a mechanical roar from the far end of the large room, drawing both group's attention to an even more massive security creature. This other digital life form was a larger dinosaur creature, so much bigger that it was partially walking on its smaller forelimbs to keep itself up. Its body seemed to be made of the same circuit boards as the smaller ones, only with plastic looking shells protecting these structures and smaller more deliberate patches of solder holding them together.

"Destroy all intruders," it ordered darkly as a good dozen of the smaller machine dinosaurs charged out around it while scanning the two groups with its massive orange eyes.

"That's a Champion," Gazimon informed everyone in a frightened tone. "So, Serperior, if you could maybe take care of it for the rest of us?"

"Dammit. Dos, Vir cause some chaos, Crabs focus fire on the machines," Bob shouted to the Hackware around them. "Alice, see if you can find another storeroom. We need to make sure we get the right stuff." This had the result of taking the formerly rather collected bunch of Hackware and scattering it around the room. Between this and the incoming security life forms half of Upload's human team were easily able to head down one of the paths while the rest covered them.

"Jack, go after them. We'll handle this group," Investigator Roberts instructed his assistant while letting out his other pokemon to join Salamence in the fight. The trainer quickly obeyed and took off down a side passage that hopefully connected to their foe's path.

His emerging Growlithe took one look at the army of foes already present and shot a blast of fire at an approaching security creature. "Right, so how'd we end up so bad you need both of us out at once?" she asked clearly not expecting an answer from her trainer as she looked more towards her teammate.

Instead of a verbal response she got her answer in the form of a massive ball of electrical energy slamming into Salamence and sending the dragon reeling. "Priority targets identified," the massive security system said clearly preparing a second attack.

The followup blast was intercepted by a tendril of green and yellow liquid slashing through it before it could also crash into the pokemon. "This is a problem," Serperior said with a cold and serious tone as he called forth a field of wrapping vines to try and entangle every other combatant.

Unfortunately this event seemed to give an idea to the Upload forces attempting to delay the forces trying to stop them. "Hackware, focus on the snake!" Tech Bob shouted while the remaining grunts shifted to keeping the security programs going after the criminals at bay. "Keep him distracted." The red colored digital life forms responded quickly by moving to harass the liquefied pokemon with multiple attacks while doing what they could to avoid or intercept his own moves.

"Okay, we need to take the big guy down quick now," Salamence said with a groan. "Because I'm not exactly up for trying to break the snake out after that hit." She then scrambled out of the way of another ball of energy, crushing a few stray Dos in the process. Growlithe quickly went over to support her teammate and protect her trainer.

The distractions and injuries to their best combat assets had quickly shifted the Troubleshooter's plans. Shawn stepped up to use his own Leaf Blade attacks to destroy lesser Hackware and soften the smaller security life forms that went for their group, A-0 began to fire blasts of energy towards the various foes while holding back to extract the team in case they weren't able to hold out, and Gazimon was using his status as the most combat viable member of the group still free to move to attack and finish any of the stronger digital life forms.

"We need to make some communication systems," Roberts told the group looking over the slowly depleting forces of Upload, and the still unharmed giant dinosaur sending yet another blast of electricity at his pokemon.

"I don't need to be able to talk to Jack and his pokemon to grab them," A-0 informed the Investigator. "If we had just a bit less to deal with I might even be able to try and get that monstrosity over there on our side. Gazimon, Shawn, can you keep them off me?"

"We can try," the digimon grunted looking at how the smaller security dinosaurs were still slowly streaming in from the various exits to the room. "But this is honestly the wrong side of this kind of mess for me." Gazimon could not keep the thought of dark forces swarming out to meet a bunch of kids among sand dunes out of his head.

Shawn's agreement was in the form of a very brief glowing green beam slashing across the swarm attacking his starter. "When we get back you're helping me with Solar Beam!" he shouted at the pokemon looking noticeably more tired.

"Is he a pokemon too?" one of the Upload grunts asked with frustration regarding the trainer's attack. The move had drawn the attention of everyone involved for a moment, including the consideration of the largest digital life form.

Gazimon spotted the next ball of electricity easily enough, and long trained experience with dodging such attacks told him exactly where it was going. Serperior was already moving, but would be putting himself at risk of both the attack and the Hackware while abandoning his own fight. A-0 had a pink barrier up before the digimon could even twitch to protect the human. Even Salamence was moving to intercept the attack despite her injuries from the other hits.

Despite all this activity he knew what he needed to do. He absentmindedly opened two of his black panes, one to form his own barrier in front of A-0's, and the other to try creating a physical barrier that hopefully would better block the attack. Then he threw himself in between Shawn and the attack.

[CONDITIONS MET]

Nobody was prepared for Gazimon to suddenly start glowing, but at the same time evolution in the middle of a tough fight was far from unheard of by those present. His body shifted and grew while obscured by the light, with his stance going from mostly bipedal to a much larger four legged frame, tail splitting into nine separate parts with each of those fluffing out drastically, and a large mane growing out around a head with notably shorter ears. The glow vanished then to reveal a massive purple furred nine tallied fox wearing a strange collar around his neck, with Dusk Ball symbols marking his head and thighs. His purple draconic flames covered his feet and the tips of his tails.

The blast of electricity then slammed through the newly evolved digimon's two newly made barriers and splashed across his body with minimal damage. He then turned to look towards the massive mechanical opponent, looking a bit confused as to what exactly was happening.

"Hey, what's your species now?" Shawn asked quite calmly, as if he had not been in grave danger just moments before.

"Uh, I'm somehow a Youkomon now," the digimon replied. "I've never heard of them before, but I guess you just get that knowledge when you evolve?" he asked shaking himself out.

"Tends to be how it works!" Serperior happily answered turning back to the Hackware. "How about you get rid of that rogue security bot for me while I handle these guys?"

"I suppose so," Youkomon said thoughtfully, before opening three panes. Unlike his prior form's simple black ones these seemed to be made out of shifting purple flames. "Actually I might even have a plan," he continued with a sly look on his face before bounding forward towards the massive digital life form.

"Priority target identified," it intoned before launching another electric attack towards the nine tailed fox. The ball of energy was met by a blast of dragon fire that even had the basic appearance of a dragon itself, with the two attacks consuming each other in a minor explosion.

"Here goes nothing," the digimon said skidding to a stop in front of the creature and then activating the work it was doing in one of its panes, the construct vanishing into a puff of smoke. Chains made of its fire wrapped around the security program, holding it in place and even binding its mouth shut. The second pane then rapidly scrolled through data while Youkomon moved even closer, knocking down two of the smaller life forms and binding them as well. "Ha, there it is!" The remaining panes flashed away in another burst of smoke, then the eyes of all the security programs shifted to a dark green. Youkomon smiled widely and removed the bindings as well, turning to face the remaining Upload forces

"Emergency period expended. Alert Team Upload forces still detected," the massive digital construct said with its newly freed mouth, turning to focus all of its attention on the intruders. "All units cease hostilities against specified units," it continued ending with a burst of sound that was clearly mechanical communication.

"Youkomon, did you just trick them into thinking two days have passed?" A-0 asked while the thieves realized that the allegiances had shifted.

"Why do that when I can just tell them they only needed 48 seconds instead of hours?" the digimon asked creating a number of hovering balls of flame. "So how about we kick Upload out of here?" he asked sending the spheres towards the red digital life forms.

"Dammit. 8, get us out of here!" Bob instructed as he released another dark colored Porygon. There was no delay this time, with the pokemon almost instantly locking onto the Upload forces and sending all of them out of the storage system.

"They've been practicing that one," A-0 said darkly. "They got all of their forces, and were masking who was keeping the lock by having the Porygon inside of the pokeball." He then looked over the various security life forms stumbling around seeming to be in a bit of a daze.

"What, what has happened here?" the largest asked now that the threat had passed. "Where are-" it cut off its question to stare at claw marks near one of the walls. "What have we done?" it asked instead turning to Youkomon.

"Acted on your programming," Shawn replied to the digital dinosaur. "We will make sure your creators know that their plan did not work as well as they intended," he continued darkly. "A-0, are there any survivors of the other kinds of digital life forms native to this location?"

"I can't get that information without a full sweep, but given just how many of these creatures are present it isn't looking promising," the Porygon replied while Youkomon padded back to the group.

"I think I might be able to scan like that," the digimon said cautiously. "But right now I'm actually pretty tired." He they was once more enveloped in a bright glow, this time shrinking him back down into the shape of a Gazimon. The de-evolved digimon looked completely confused at the result, and quite thoroughly exhausted. He was also holding onto a small white cube with a bit of a death grip.

"Mega evolution?" Serperior asked confused while moving over to his teammate. "Although that's a bit more boxy than any mega stone I've heard of," he continued pointing at the cube.

"I'm not sure what about that is more upsetting to me," Gazimon said blandly. "That I'm like the Digidestined Digimon somehow, or that you guys once again already know about something like this happening to monsters." He looked over the cube thoughtfully. "Is suddenly not knowing how to do things you could just a moment ago normal for this kind of thing? Because I'm pretty sure that now I can't do the scan thing I was thinking about."

"A Slowpoke could probably tell you about that," Shawn noted spotting Jack's team returning. They looked to be in good shape, with a pair of the dazed security programs escorting them. "Maybe at least, they aren't the sharpest when they aren't evolved."

"Yeah, that's about what I expected. You guys knowing stuff already is the worst part," the digimon said tossing the cube to his trainer. "How much did they steal before you got to them?" he asked the new arrivals.

"Overall not much, but given what they probably want with it?" Jack asked returning his pokemon. "This was a parts raid, and a few good setups are probably more than enough given how much was here."

"Can I ask what the hell that is?" Salamence questioned pointing towards the cautiously approaching massive digital dinosaur. "Because that was not an average attack there, and it was just throwing it around like it was just a spark."

"That is what Gazimon calls a Champion stage digital life form," Serperior answered flowing onto his trainer's shoulder. "I'm just glad there were more high end fighters for it to target this time. Especially seeing Gazi reach that level using his new mega-evolution thing."

"I have at least as many questions about that as the rest of you," Gazimon told the group.

"Let's try and get an inventory of what is still here so we have some idea of what they managed to get," Investigator Roberts cut in refocusing the teams on the matter at hand.

\---

"The dev team is once again split on how bad this is," Janice told them looking over the list they had produced. "On one hand this could allow some life form creation if put together properly, but on the other they have a fairly good idea that this was specifically to revive the digimon they took from us."

"More of the stuff was lost because it was destroyed inside there than because they got away with," Roberts added looking over the results. "Although how much of that was just the security system going feral is hard to say. The owners are already sending out updates to the other locations they'd advised to use this 'attack everything' method about how badly it works in practice."

"Just to be clear, most of those digi-monsters are at the level of the really big one right?" Jack asked clearly worried at the prospect.

"A good number of them even look kinda the same," Gazimon answered looking over the cube critically. "So yeah, that's exactly what we're worried about Upload getting a bunch of." He looked seriously at the trainer. "You know what the good news is? There shouldn't be any Ultimates in there."

"I take it Ultimate would be bad?" the trainer asked.

"At least as much stronger than a Champion as one is to a Rookie, so the gap between the small ones and the big one stronger," the digimon answered. "A strong group of Champions who all can work together well might be able to take one down, but I wouldn't want to face one without an Ultimate of our own." He tossed the white polygon in the air once. "So, A-0, any idea how this thing works so I know if we can somehow rig it to send me up another level?"

"Well, that is where things get interesting," the Porygon answered. "I found operation log files in three places regarding your temporary evolution. Shawn, open the key stone slot on the Pokedex."

The trainer did so, revealing a silvery disk filling the slot with a black star shaped mark in the middle. "Huh, I thought these looked different," Shawn commented while simply looking over the object. "So it is like mega evolution then?"

"From what I can tell a location I cannot currently trace connected with Gazimon after he threw himself in front of you, then started a fairly standard sequence as far it it was concerned. First it traced back along the bond between the two of you to find out who his trainer was," A-0 informed the group.

"You're falling into topics most people don't know about again," Serperior cautioned the Porygon. "The bond it's talking about is a fairly basic metaphysical aspect of interacting with others. The longer and better you've known someone the easier it is to connect the two of you metaphysically," he then explained to the various individuals already looking confused at A-0's explanation.

"Anyway, it followed that bond and then from what I have been able to tell ran a search for a certain type of electronic device," A-0 continued casting a dark look at the snake pokemon. "There is a long list of requirements, and honestly it looks to me like the thing doing the scan was a bit surprised when the Pokedex had all of that stuff except for the energy transfer method. Even then from the logs I found in the Pokedex it seems to have stuttered for a moment when it found the key stone slot. Then it made this key stone like construct, and updated the device with what appears to be region specific creature data from Gazimon's digital world."

"So we should have more information on these digimon then," Shawn said tapping the device to look for the mentioned data. "Does this work as a normal key stone, or will it only be for digital creatures?"

"From what I can tell it decided to mimic mega evolution directly," the digital pokemon said nodding. "So it might actually work with a normal mega stone. The next thing it did after all was to make that cube thing, which is a bit more basic than one of those." It connected to the monitor array and changed the bottom rightmost one to display a diagram of the object with notations. "I'm going to need LAS and the dev team to look at it for a better idea of how it does what it does, but it seems to convert typed energy into power usable by a digital creature to temporarily evolve into a higher state."

"How does normal mega evolution work?" Jack asked clearly confused by the entire topic. "I don't think I've heard of it before?" he questioned Investigator Roberts specifically.

"We haven't had to deal with it yet. From my understanding it is one of a few techniques by which a trainer gives some of their energy to their pokemon to achieve a temporary combat boost," Roberts replied thoughtfully. "So this cube lets a Gazimon evolve for a moment using the energy given by the digital key stone Shawn has there?"

"That is actually why I want the dev team looking. I don't think it is as picky as that," the Porygon responed. "Mostly because of the log file in Gazimon's evolutionary data. After it made the cube it activated it and let the cube do the rest. Which means it connected to Gazimon triggered his own evolution code, and then found the closest connected source of enough typed energy to evolve him." The display shifted to an energy reading of the rabbit monster. "Gazimon's own Dark type."

"Wait, I was exhausted because it took my energy to evolve me?" Gazimon asked incredulous. "Why? If I have enough energy to evolve already why do I need this thing?"

"Because you didn't have the Dark type before," Serperior breathed. "You didn't have a type before, and this thing that gave you the cube didn't know you already had this kind of energy because it assumed only humans had it."

"It is also that your status as a pokemon seems to have altered your evolution," A-0 said sounding quite sorry. "Your digimon energies are not growing very quickly compared to those of your Dark type. It is entirely possible you need this object to convert that energy into something you can use to evolve at all, and that means it will always be temporary."

"It might be something you can keep up constantly," Shawn said thoughtfully. "We need to practice it anyway to get you used to using the new form." He then laughed and smiled at the digimon. "Mega evolution is normally risky because using energy from another individual can have mental side effects. Normally trainers need to be highly in tune with their pokemon to use the ability safely, and now we know you don't need to worry about that right now."

"Given the new key stone it might still be an issue if he is low on typed energy," Janice cautioned. "There does seem to have been a plan to use your energy given we now have some strange kind of key stone."

"Then we will need to be careful about attempting while Gazi is tired," the trainer agreed nodding. "I don't know if the two of us are close enough for that kind of connection in any case short of an emergency."

\---

It was late that night when the three of them were finally alone. "Gazimon," Shawn said to attract the digimon's attention while they quietly prepared to go to sleep. "Thank you."

The simple statement still shook the digital monster. "Everyone else was helping too," the rabbit like creature insisted looking away.

"But no one else was between me and the attack," his trainer insisted. "I might have been able to take it after those barriers everyone had gotten up, including two from you," he continued with a laugh. "But you still went farther."

"We are glad you are here," Serperior said seriously. "And I actually wish we could have met sooner. Maybe then you'd have had a better life and we all might have reached the League."

"Yeah, I think that might have been nice," Gazimon quietly confessed.


	29. 2-0B Lost Souls

\--- Lost Souls ---

Youkomon skid across the bare dirt quickly flashing a pane into existence. The flame construct quickly scrolled through data before a barrier of purple dragon fire separated him from the splashing of his serpentine foe. Then sufficiently hidden from view he dug under the ground, filling in the hole after him with a flick of his tails. He had discovered that his new form was quite a bit more capable of manipulating data in a variety of ways. Apparently his DSS Porygon traits synergized well with his new form's mystical abilities.

On the surface Serperior let out a happy laugh looking at a small scorched patch of his body before slamming a wide area of the ground with a flattened tail. "Good try Youko, but I listen to the ground too!" The snake pokemon was not holding back very much, if at all. The end result was fairly equal between them, which Youkomon found odd and Serperior clearly enjoyed.

The digimon responded to the cavern collapsing move with a literal dragon made of fire exploding out of the short tunnel he had managed to make, then continued the fight on the surface. Both of the combatants easily moved to clashing with purple flames, green blades, sharp claws, and crushing waves. Although soon the combat came to an end with the nine tailed fox glowing and shrinking back to Gazimon after a final solid hit from the Grass type.

"That was longer right?" he asked picking himself up while panting somewhat.

"It was," Shawn agreed from the sidelines. "So it does look like we can train that part of it."

"Have I mentioned that we were idiots?" Serperior asked turning towards their trainer still quite excited. "Because I think the difference just having someone at your level to practice with makes more than shows we were idiots."

"Yes, I'm quite sure that is clear now," Shawn agreed nodding. "I'm fairly sure half an hour isn't enough time for you to recover yet, I felt a bit of a drain this time."

"I thought it wasn't supposed to be a noticeable drain for a human?" Gazimon asked thinking back to what he had seen of the Digidestined. "The kids didn't even seem to notice."

"Well, it isn't said to be for mega evolution either, and the drain wasn't that much," the trainer replied. "However, I'm trained in not only using my energy, but also able to actually perform moves with it. I don't know if there are many humans on the planet as sensitive to their own energy as I am now."

"Guys, we have some news," A-0 called out from the edge of the makeshift arena looking over the now typical damage from Gazimon's training. "Clean up and head to the lab."

\---

"The Gazi-mon evolved," Anderson repeated darkly without looking away from the data he had been inspecting. "And then rewrote the loyalty of an entire system's worth of security programs?"

"To stop the so called 'trainer' from getting hit by the strongest digital monster I've ever seen," Bob confirmed darkly while Absol padded in circles nervously. "I'm not sure it was needed given that the ball of lightning was in response to him somehow using a Solar Beam to cut through our Hackware."

"A human that knows moves, a League level Serperior with unique abilities, and a living digital monster," Absol listed. "We need to catch up. They've been fighting in digital worlds longer than us, long enough to apparently react to this overpowered security system we hit this time."

"The Gazi-mon called the big one a 'Champion' like it meant something," Alice noted. "We know that digital monsters evolve oddly, what if that is a way of measuring it?"

"It fits with the data we've recovered from DSS," the developer agreed. "The Gazi-mon remains have a property that is listed as 'Rookie' with the more advanced examples being mostly labed 'Champion' as well." He tapped at the screen. "Notably most are not going to be easily revived at full power, so they might have started at the lowest level for that reason."

"Even if it needed time to recover something that strong would be a big help," Bob argued. "It almost took the Investigator's Salamence down with the first blast."

"We will need creatures of that power to advance," Absol agreed. "I'm now quite sure that these creatures were the real benefit I recovered during my raid. We simply must use this new equipment to revive the best of the remains and see how many can be recovered."

"That is where things get interesting," Anderson said with a wide smile. "As I have found an anomaly within the data." He pointed to the screen. "This one is actually trying to piece itself back together. The most advanced of the bunch, and it might simply need just a bit of help."

\---

"I think I have enough of a single Tyranomon to revive them," Charlie 13 said visible over a video connection before blinking to look over the paired image coming from a small camera in the Troubleshooter Lab. "Wow, everything having curves is a lot weirder looking than I'd thought."

"Are we going to move them to another site first, or is this something only you can do right now?" Janice asked looking warily at the expanse of black behind the Porygon in the image.

"The data isn't safe to move," the Administrator responded. "Which is almost good news as it means what Upload took from us is likely in a bit worse shape than what we have, only with more of it." He turned and moved slightly off camera so they could better see the distortions, now considerably smaller. "This digimon alone is spread over three of these," he informed them generating white outlines on the hard to look at structures.

"Okay, that does not sound good for putting whoever it is back together," Gazimon said queasy from the sight.

"Which is why I had the dev team get in contact with a fossil revival facility to see what their process does," the Porygon agreed. "Deepstone was glad to give us notes, and Grant's work for them meant he could translate the mess they sent us into something intelligible."

"Sadly he's probably understating things," Grant admitted. "I only know what those 'notes' were saying because I had to run the thing myself for Kabutops."

"That doesn't sound too promising," the mentioned fossil noted. "I don't remember anything from before my 'revival', so it might as well have been my birth."

"You aren't made of code," A-0 said thoughtfully. "A fossil might not be able to carry memories, while digital code might."

"Fossil pokemon sometimes remember some things," Quagsire added. "Usually not much and not clearly, but it is a possibility even for them."

"Some bad news is that we are still missing a chunk of the back of the spine," Charlie 13 told the group bringing up a wire frame of a bipedal dinosaur with a tube of material clearly missing trailing back from the base of the head.

"Now's probably a bad time to mention they were kinda enslaved, isn't it?" Gazimon asked remembering his own part in the action. "That is where a cable connected them to the Dark Network so we could control them."

"So dealing with my error was a known situation for you?" the LAS asked awkwardly. "You have done that kind of mass control before?"

"In that case we probably do have that data, it is just too closely mixed with the other bits that are the Dark Network itself to recover," Shawn said easily accepting Gazimon's confession.

"Are we really just looking past what he just said they did?" Jack whispered to Investigator Roberts.

"Given we already knew this was a typical issue for them to deal with I'd say it should be fine," the Investigator replied quietly while nodding towards LAS. "Besides, it is a good precedent for them reforming other digital life forms."

"That does mean that we might need to restrain the Tyranomon when it is revived," Serperior noted glaring at the pair out of the edge of his eye. "Who do we want there for that?"

"Has to be either you, or maybe me if I evolved," Gazimon said shaking his head. "Tyranomon is basically a fire breathing version of that Champion security program."

"We have a digimon compatible pokeball variant," the LAS added looking uneasy. "These are mostly derived from subtle modifications that have occurred to Gazimon's Dusk Ball. The number is limited, but it could possibly help."

"We do?" Charlie 13 asked surprised. "That actually would resolve a major stability problem I've been worried about. If we can use one of those in the revival process it would help greatly."

"Does it need the digimon to have a type?" Gazimon questioned looking thoughtful. "Because I can guarantee that digimon from my digital world don't have those, so we'd be modifying the Tyranomon if he needs one."

"No, we have in fact only finished this project due to your new evolutionary item," the LAS said more happily. "The type-less digimon energy it converts energy from a type into has now been identified and quantified better. For the scale of digital creature we are looking at an Ultra Ball base for the conversion to ensure safe containment. We have three such examples."

"Grant, have you worked with a Tyrantrum before?" Janice asked the fossil hunter getting a strong nod in response. "I want you with Shawn's team. From what I can tell it will be a similar creature, so you will probably end up training it. I want to try to avoid any stress with Gazimon's presence that turns up."

"I only had him for a short time after he evolved, but I still remember the advice I got on dealing with Dragon types," Grant responded before looking over at Investigator Roberts. "And I'm sure the Investigators have plenty of practical knowledge to give us on keeping their own dragons in line."

\---

Box 113's broken area looked far less damaged overall when they arrived. A larger platform of land had been either moved or created next to the existing location and had a ring of six ominous looking pillars on its upper side. The serpent like form of the Administrator hovered between these structures and the distortions with the borderless image of the Troubleshooter Lab still floating next to him for a moment before it closed.

Grant held the quickly retrieved and notably modified Ultra Ball loosely. The typical coloration had been replaced with Porygon pink with the matching blue line. "So it's going to start off inside of this then?" the fossil hunter asked nervously walking across the rather solid path they had resorted to in order to allow him to cross the gaps in the terrain.

"That is the plan. Uh, I hate to say this but I'm not too fond of what this setup ended up looking like when I tried to make it from what I have," the Administrator replied in some confusion. "When you use technology it ends up a lot smaller, but I think the best place to get the parts we're after quickly kinda just got attacked. Maybe we have the right stuff in storage, but whoever is in charge of that hasn't gotten back to me about this."

"We don't have the specific components Upload was after, so if you are replicating those then we at least know that this is what they are doing," A-0 told its brother. "It would be quite worrying if we can tell they were after this kind of setup."

"60% part match," Charlie 13 told his sibling. "I'm pushing this a bit to make sure we have some higher end digital life forms of our own, or at least know what happens when a revival is attempted."

"Are we planning on telling the Tyranomon that?" Gazimon asked looking nervously at the distortions. "Because its probably going to be pissed enough at seeing me, let alone hearing that it is a test subject."

"Hopefully 'we brought you back to life' is a good enough response," Serperior said dangerously while moving to the front of the group. "Have the cube ready anyway. The two of us should be able to handle him."

"Right, set that down in the middle of the circle and we can get started," the Administrator instructed Grant. The trainer cautiously set the sphere in the center of a complicated looking ring of polygonal markings, and then quickly moved back to the rest of the Troubleshooters. "I'll need to concentrate for this."

The first thing to happen was the Giratina shaped Porygon spread his red tipped tendrils out to hover with each between a different pair of pillars. Then a series of grey panes formed a rough dome across the tops of them and began to scroll a very complex program. Once this scrolling concluded the panes shifted to a uniform black color and Charlie 13 floated over to the distortions.

He proceeded to tap the three distortions containing the data with the ends of his tendrils, drawing out a dark black smoke that he gathered in front of him. Holding the rolling ball of gas with his bottom four tendrils he used the top two to collect six more wispy fragments, and then maneuvered the mass back to the structure. Moving into the center of the ring he carefully split the ball into six parts and moved each to form a thin wall in the remaining openings between the pillars.

Finally he lowered to tap the pokeball with all six of his tendrils, causing another rush of text on the panels and the smoke to drain into the pattern on the floor. In an instant the panels shattered in a flash of black causing the ball to seem to glow black and the smoke followed the lines into the sphere quickly until it was all consumed by it. A moment later the black faded as the pokeball clicked announcing successful capture.

"A-0, none of you are allowed to say you're not gods anymore," Gazimon dryly told the Porygon. "Not when your brother decides to use a mystical ritual to raise the dead."

"I find myself struggling to find a way to disagree," the pokemon replied tightly. "Did it work at least?"

"There is someone in there, but we need to let them out for a better scan to see how they did," the Administrator said looking over the sphere curiously. "Are we ready to do that?"

"We're ready," Shawn said getting out the Pokedex and flipping it open, Serperior agreed by nodding eagerly.

Charlie 13 tapped the button on the digimon pokeball, and a massive bipedal dinosaur emerged. It had red scales along most of its body, with a white belly and black stripes. Green plates emerged from its spine all the way from the base of its head to the tip of its tail, with the exception of a scarred wound just after the second of the plates on its neck. Three large claws emerged from the end of each of its limbs, and its blue eyes scanned the group in confusion until it spotted Gazimon.

"You! Little rodent digging in the sand!" the digimon roared with puffs of flame emerging from his mouth, causing Gazimon to flinch slightly and prepare for a fight. "I should have stomped on you the moment the Network went mad." He then paused at the look on the smaller digimon's face while reaching for the back of his neck. "Ready to fight then for using us in your-" Tyranomon cut himself off as his claws scraped over the scarred part of his skin, grabbing for a cable that was no longer there.

"Hey, I was just a grunt," Gazimon complained. "I'm not Etemon or Datamon, at best I had to try and fix the damn thing when it went wrong."

"So you never ordered us around then?" the dinosaur countered, then frowned at the smirk Gazimon produced at the question.

"Sorry, I didn't get to give orders," the rabbit monster said sarcastically. "All I got was chances to play 'avoid the Champion' whenever boss monkey decided we didn't do a good enough job at fixing something we didn't understand. I recognize you though, and I know you've tried real hard to stomp me before."

"Now Gazimon, be fair. He was likely making the most of being allowed to try that," Shawn said jokingly. "Perhaps being under that kind of control still allows for some freedom in how you accomplish the orders you are given."

The casual addition by a human seemed to once more confuse Tyranomon, who looked between the two uncertainly for a moment. "Do not tell me you are a Digidestined," he rumbled disbelieving. "I cannot stand a world where one of you rodents was intended to save our world..." The massive digimon trailed off as he looked at the actual terrain around them, or rather the rather large lack of solid terrain. "You're supposed to go back to the Primary Village when you die," he then said worried while turning to look around the entire area, jumping slightly at seeing the form of Charlie 13.

"Heh, really?" Gazimon asked harshly. "You believe that tall tale they tell little baby mons to make them feel better when their friends die?"

Tyranomon turned back to give the rabbit digimon a look of sheer and utter disbelief, the kind reserved for a person who just declared that the sky was typically bright green. "What?" he asked in a tone matching his look. "You, what? Of course it's real. We've all been there. I." The large digimon cut himself off and sat down heavily before turning towards Serperior. "What the hell does he mean, snake digimon I don't recognize?"

"Not a digimon actually, and given no one else has started I guess I get to be the bearer of bad news," the serpent replied. "You were eaten, and then the thing that ate you had a bit of itself flung out of your universe. Gazimon here was flung with the bit of the thing, and for a while now we didn't even know your corpse was floating around in pieces."

"I believe I will start by asking about how I'm not pieces of a corpse?" Tyranomon asked dully after taking a moment to process the response.

"There is a longer story attached to that as well, but the short of it is that when we discovered the remains of the Dark Network I got started looking to find the most intact individuals," Charlie 13 supplied. "You are the only viable individual I was able to find in the part we still have. All of you was present, albeit a bit scattered across the distortions." The Porygon pointed at the damaged area of the Box with his tendrils. "I have just finished reassembling you using modified methods and equipment for reviving fossil pokemon."

"I do not like any of the things you just said," the dinosaur said sounding exasperated. "What are you exactly?"

"I am Digital Storage Solutions Box Administrator Porygon Charlie 13 Box 113. I am responsible for the form and function of the digital world around us in order to store pokemon inside comfortably," the digital pokemon replied proudly. "To accomplish that task I am bonded to this digital world, with it effectively being a part of my body, allowing me to directly control its contents in a number of ways."

"That answer just raised a lot more questions, while also making asking the questions seem like it will only make things worse," Tyranomon replied moving away from the Administrator. "Gazimon, how bad is the mess we're in?"

"We just raised you from the dead because we're worried about an group of thieves with the ability to manufacture their own primitive digimon stole from us the larger part of the Dark Network fragment we found you in," the smaller digimon replied. "They've just stole the equipment needed to revive their own digimon from it, and they can probably control them too."

"To be honest our plan for what to do with you was basically have Grant here use you as a heavy hitter when that happens," Shawn added pointing at the fossil hunter.

"You'll need to get into better shape first," Grant told the dinosaur looking at him critically. "Looks like you weren't being fed enough and had a few rough fights without proper care for your wounds. A few good meals, and couple of conditioning battles with proper medical care afterward and I'm sure we can have you back into fighting shape."

Tyranomon stared at the calm and simple statement about improving his ability to fight with wide eyes. "I didn't think humans went battle mad," he said quietly now trying to move away from all of them.

"Battle mad? I just meant some training matches, you know, to keep yourself in shape?" the fossil hunter asked quite confused. "I've worked with a monster somewhat like you before for a bit. That's part of why I'd be the one working with you, prior experience."

"You have prior experience with giant fire breathing dinosaurs?" the digimon matching that description asked dryly. "You, some random human, have experience with giant monsters that can destroy landmarks on their own?"

"Well, not the second part, I'm only a two Badge trainer." Tyranomon blinked at the terminology. "But yes, I've worked with a Tyrantrum before. A bit smaller than you, and not as strong last I saw him."

"We're in a digital world attached to a world full of battle mad monsters and the humans that live in a place like that," Gazimon told the other digimon. "Careful, it is an infectious attitude," he added breathing out a puff of purple flames.

"The Gazimon just breathed fire, can I go somewhere else please?" Tyranomon asked somewhat desperately prompting Charlie 13 to return him to his new pokeball.

"I think that went well," A-0 said sarcastically. "I'm sure he'll be fine with getting put into a tiny sphere after all of that just happened to him."

"Is it safe to take him out?" Grant asked cautiously. "He really does look to be in bad shape, but some rest in there is probably best so he can be ready to deal with what is happening."

"Safe enough, although I do hope you are going straight to Delta 2 with him," the Administrator replied. "I did what I could to put him back together, but she has the real equipment and lack of interference that would get the whole picture."

\---

"Well Delta 2, what's he look like?" Janice asked from a new communication window after a direct transfer between the two Boxes.

"He's around the mid to low 50s in terms of level," Delta 2 answered looking at the pokeball set in an advanced scanning device. "For context Gazimon is now in the high 30s by default, and jumps to the mid to high 60s when he uses his new evolution. We also have information on what a Champion should be like from the data on Charlie 11's death, the last mission to a storage system, and most importantly the new database on the Pokedex. 60 should be around the lower bound for a Champion digital life form."

"I'm high 30s?" Gazimon asked surprised. "Wait, that's not that much lower than he is."

"Exactly, from what I can tell the only reason he's maintaining the higher evolutionary stage is that his form itself is showing this damage," the Administrator agreed. "I'm also sad to say most of you own level comes from your Dark typing. You digimon energy alone is only at the high teens, and from the new data we have you will need far more than that to evolve properly for a digimon."

"That does help explain why he can power his own Champion stage evolution though," Serperior noted. "Though given some more training you might end up not needing it eventually."

"What can we do to help Tyranomon?" Grant asked reading over a preliminary report on a nearby console.

"Your initial plan is the best we have actually. It is unclear how a pure digimon would react to that sort of training, but we honestly don't have experience with anything other than pokemon," Delta 2 answered. "I can try and patch up some of the data issues, but Gazimon at least has some self repair functions like living creatures do so I want to wait to see what just basic training does first." She picked up the small sphere from the device. "I recommend getting him used to the physical world first while finding a large meal. Maybe try and explain everything while he eats."


	30. 2-0C Family Ties

\--- Family Ties ---

Two dinosaur monsters looked over each other critically while eating. The cafeteria was just large enough to fit the pair while the rest of Grant's team tried their best to respond to Tyranomon's questions. So far the digimon was having a hard time adapting to both freedom and the reality of the pokemon world.

"So, let me just make sure I understand this, it is fairly common for human children in this world to assemble entire teams of combat trained monsters and travel around their home region testing their battle prowess against the best fighters in the region?" Tyranomon asked looking at the news report on a television regarding the local Gym.

"Yes?" Grant confirmed still confused by the reaction to pokemon training. "It is a good way to see the world and try and find a job. You visit a lot of places and see all the things that are done there, and maybe even decide to go back home to work at something more familiar."

"Being a trainer isn't the most common profession, and a majority of them never make it past their first Gym," Kabutops added. "So even though a lot of humans have attempted to train pokemon, most of them don't have any real skill at it."

"That still is worrying. The Digidestined didn't seem to be real familiar with fighting," the digimon replied pointing at the television where a battle was being shown, the fight still rather harsh despite featuring a notably meeker looking Hydreigon. "Although I don't really know what their human world is supposed to be like."

"I'm still trying to determine what I am doing here," Tyrantrum rumbled, and Grant still looked somewhat embarrassed at the lack of comprehension from Tyranomon. "He can't hear me, and I'm not even a fire breather. He has ranged attacks and giant hands. Just being about the same shape isn't enough for the two of us to help each other."

"So, are the animal sounds actual words or not?" Tyranomon asked looking curiously at the other dinosaur. "I'm fairly sure Monochromon did that a bit, but I don't know if they were really talking either."

"I forgot to check with Gazimon first about how he knows what they mean," Grant admitted to both of them. "His understanding of pokemon is actually a side effect of the changes that A-0 had to make so he could use the old transport systems safely."

"Changes," the digimon said faintly while eyeing his pokemon equivalent. "How big are his changes?"

"We haven't worked here very long, so we don't exactly have the skills to tell you accurately," Kabutops began. "What I do know is that he is now a pokemon, which is a bunch of differences on its own. He also has some capability to manipulate digital worlds like the Administrator Porygon."

"You gave a Gazimon godlike power?" the massive red dinosaur said in a dry tone, like he expected the sky to crack apart at any moment.

Their conversation was then interrupted by an angry looking Serperior sliding with purpose past the doorway holding a newspaper in a death grip. It took only a second glance to realize the pokemon was female and the angry muttering was not understood by the normal humans and single digimon present.

\---

"Where are my brothers?" Strangle shouted from the doorway of the Troubleshooter Lab. "I want an explanation from them on why I had to learn they were attacked by Team Rocket from the damn newspaper, and they are not even getting the chance to hang up on me this time." She then paused as the translation machine repeated her words in a way that let Janice know what she was saying near instantly.

Shawn and Serperior both froze in place and turned to nervously look at her, while Gazimon looked closely between the two snake pokemon to compare them. "Ah, Strangle, you're here," Shawn replied nervously.

"Congratulations Shawn, for years now I've had to deal with mom saying the two of us were somehow switched at birth. Now I can say that I see why," the new serpent said holding out the relatively old paper. "I'm the one who apparently has the human temperament."

"I really hope starters being in charge of teams is uncommon," Quagsire said as her team arrived in the doorway, the two dinosaurs returned to their pokeballs. "Because I for one can say that the trainer understanding you does not help at all."

Strangle eyed the pokemon for a moment before turning back to her declared siblings. "Right, you have run into a Team Rocket remnant?" she asked them bluntly getting nervous nods. "Okay, we're calling my disappointment of a trainer. He's managed to get himself into law enforcement, and I know I can get his ass here with a good translator."

"What's going- Strangle?" Vibration said flapping over at the front of Jack's team, clearly having been let out assuming that Grant's own rush to the lab was an emergency. The trainer himself then looked with surprise at his starter, pausing in the hallway wordless.

Shawn's Serperior responded to this event by splashing into a puddle and flowing to hide under a desk. Strangle watched as Shawn moved to help hide his starter while looking totally innocent, and then turned to look at the translation machine. "You know. I'm going to ignore the fact that one of my brothers just melted, and that both of them haven't called me since the attacks," she said dully. "Because we had a test for you. One I've been having them keep up with. To just see if you would finally get off your ass and call us!"

"I have the distinct impression that I am going to forever regret being around pokemon translators," Jack said to himself clearly worried. "I had thought you were mad about me expanding the team," he then said louder to the snake pokemon. "I'm sorry."

"Not yet you're not. You think I didn't know that?" she countered. "Just because you tried to keep it quiet from the others doesn't mean I didn't get an earful of how 'they are just to help us reach the League'." Vibration flinched at the statement. "If you ever just bothered to actually listen to us then you would have known that you were wrong." She turned back to Shawn. "Those two at least have the excuse that they've always been careless, and they know telling me about things just leads to me having to yell at them, why do you know Acid Armor?!?" she finished raising in tone to outright shouting at the puddle of snake.

"Because it is useful?" her sibling burbled.

"Okay, what is Shawn doing that isn't going to make me happy?" she then asked bluntly. "Because you are all here right now, and there is no way he's not doing something."

"Well I'm a pokemon now," he responded in his typical calm tone, although with a bit of a nervous edge. "Pokeball and everything."

"'Everything'? Are you including fighting in that?" She questioned strongly.

"You asked what wasn't going to make you happy about me," the trainer confirmed. "Might end up getting the ability to turn back into a Serperior temporarily too."

"I regret asking and am not looking forward to our next family reunion," Strangle sighed. "Mom's already upset that the body of her son is one person and the mind another, although given it is you two she's dealing with that pretty well."

"So, is joining a team like joining a family? Because I want to know if she counts for me too," Gazimon cut in smiling. "Cause I like her already."

The female Serperior took a moment to look over the rabbit monster. "What does he do that will piss me off?" she asked Shawn dryly. "Because he somehow ended up on your team, and that has to take either a miracle or disaster to bring about."

This statement sucked what little humor there was out of the room. "We have up to a possible army of League level computer life forms under the control of a villainous team that might have followed him when he got so lost he ended up in another universe," A-0 told her floating over. "Which is probably the real thing that Shawn's team is not informing you about."

"This isn't just a one time thing, is it?" she asked the Porygon thoughtfully while holding up the paper. "You finally found yourself a problem didn't you?"

"Sister," Shawn said with a smile. "We found our problem years ago. That's why we're here after all. Jack's problem is just bad enough to finally need our help."

\---

Janice looked over the small cavern critically, she had not been inside of a Box in quite some time and the sight of a true alternate world was still quite fascinating to her. The Latios they were caring for was attempting to keep up with his ability to speak human, and at this point she was the only member of the Troubleshooter team still limited in that aspect of pokemon interaction. The LAS would normally not have accompanied her, but with A-0 needed to go over some of the technical data on Tyranomon's resurrection they were limited in who had the data archives to assist in this task. Metang was more than happy to come along to help make sure the digital life form didn't bother the Legendary pokemon.

"So, you were made to look into Legendary pokemon?" the young airplane shaped pokemon asked the jellyfish digital life form. "This must be great for you with all the Legendary pokemon the humans have made to maintain these places."

"They commonly deny being Legendary pokemon," the LAS replied deliberately not looking at Charlie 16 who was floating nervously nearby.

"Well they're wrong about that, I mean about the only thing that I haven't heard about them doing is bringing the dead back to life," Latios said with a laugh, then looked at the nervous reactions of the Troubleshooters. "You've done that too haven't you?"

"Charlie 13 has just performed that very action," the LAS sweetly replied looking over at Janice. "I am lucky enough to be allowed to support the operation of the DSS Legendary pokemon."

"Well, I would have preferred a different conversation topic," Janice told the Dragon/Psychic type. "But at least I understood your entire side of that conversation. So it is looking like this little refresher on human speech is working out."

"Thank you Janice. I was managing with my trainer before, but mom and dad weren't that concerned with having me really learn it yet," the pokemon replied happily. "Although I guess you're a lot more used to talking with pokemon than most people."

"You are lucky I haven't learned pokemon myself yet," she agreed a bit jokingly as she nodded. "It has become a common skill for Troubleshooter teams."

"I enjoy providing translations," Metang told her, having worked out how to emulate their translation program without the additional equipment. "Providing communication and administration support is very enjoyable, and is producing high mental activity. Search for compatible and willing combination partner started."

Janice blinked at the reply and turned to look at her pokemon. "You're looking to evolve? We're behind on training right now."

"Improved technical abilities from evolution would greatly improve operations," the Steel/Psychic type told her. "Combat capacity is lower than standard for the process, however, increased capabilities may be significant enough to find partner."

"Well, I guess you know what you're doing there then," she said with a nod. "Right, let's try a more complex conversation to make sure that there aren't any noticeable holes."

\---

"You found a threat to the entire planet?" Strangle asked dryly after receiving a more complete explanation of the problem than would get printed in the news.

"Not to the whole planet, just a major industry that is driving a lot of civilization," Serperior replied trying to placate his sister.

"Gazimon, how dangerous is it if they wake up this 'Dark Network' thing?" the other snake pokemon asked.

"They can't. I don't know the whole background of the thing, but Etemon and Datamon were the two that made it into the thing I worked on. They had a big fight, and Datamon ended up the guy forced to keep the thing operating properly while Etemon was in charge of all of us," Gazimon answered looking over at Tyranomon's ball. "The network itself was based inside of this pyramid structure, and you'd either need one of those two, or a whole lot more of its core in order to fix it in any way."

"And the chances of one of those two being in the part that Upload has?" she pressed. "We're talking about Team Rocket finding a way to manufacture League level pokemon!"

"Which is why we are accelerating our movements," Investigator Roberts told her. "We have solid trace capabilities we are deploying, and are in the process of doing a sweep of likely targets to trace their older staging areas. They don't have the personnel to do much more than they are now, and they can't afford to try and move to a new location."

"Main communication lines out of the region are now being monitored, and from there we can easily trace them while they setup a new main base," A-0 confirmed. "Right now the big issue is finding their current base before they can deploy too many advanced digital life forms."

Strangle looked darkly at Jack now. "If I was still a combat pokemon I'd be demanding to join up right now," she told him. "But I'm done with that, Jack. I stood by you longer than I should have, and its ruined fighting for me. So, one last ultimatum." She slid closer and rose to look him in the eyes. "Keep my brothers safe, and get them out of this, or I'm finding a Legendary that is willing to turn you into a rat."

"You won't need to look far," A-0 said darkly. "If he's responsible for hurting either of those two my siblings are going to do worse than that." The Porygon floated over in between the two. "He isn't likely to do that though, as he's basically the least useful of our group."

"Sister, A-0," Shawn cut in harshly. "We aren't friends anymore, but we are professional enough to do our jobs properly despite the bad blood between us. Me and Serp can handle this."

"Huh, it really does work hearing that out of you," Strangle said moving away. "Next time you come home try and find a way to be a snake." Approaching the door she turned to Gazimon. "If you are the kind of monster to actually manage to join my brothers on a pokemon team, then you definitely can call me 'sister' if you want."

"Strangle, was it really that bad?" Vibration asked before she could leave. "Being on our team?"

She stopped and turned to face the Flygon. "Do you think our trainer actually stopped thinking he could have won everything with just me?" she asked calmly, then continued out the door.

"No, but he still uses the rest of us," the Ground/Dragon said sadly watching her leave. "Even if you caught all of us for him." This statement stopped the serpent, who looked back at him with a surprised look on her face.

"I still don't know what to think about my complete failure to capture pokemon," Jack said looking sad. "Although looking at how things turned out I'm pretty sure Shawn was the better trainer between the two of us. I will admit I've also been wondering about a couple of times where our team didn't seem to listen to me and we still won too."

"That wasn't me, you just couldn't control them well. I wasn't surprised at all to hear that you lost most of the team once the League was done," she said much more calmly but still keeping a harsh tone.

"The person who does the catching does matter," Grant told the two of them. "It is the way you join the team, and in a real way is who you look towards when you train."

"I have to worry about you trying to get a pokeball don't I?" Quagsire asked with fond annoyance. "That is part of why being a starter is so important. You are the first, and you were given or caught to begin the trainer's team. Being given to someone after that means something different, because they already have others to go with them."

"In my case I knew from the start my trainer was simply hunting for fossils to research them, and that I was only on the team to train until evolution," Kabutops added. "I'm glad to be working with them directly now, but I will admit some reluctance to fight back when it was just to make myself stronger."

"So you think I made the problem worse then?" Strangle asked harshly.

"I know I made our problem worse," Serperior countered. "What does mom think about you catching all of them?"

"I will let you tell her about the Acid Armor if you don't mention it to her," his sister suggested cautiously, sounding uneasy for the first time since her arrival.

"I don't want to be the one to tell her," Shawn and Serperior said together. "That's not the kind of news you get away with revealing."

"They still do that?" she asked Gazimon with wide eyes.

"Long as I've knew 'em. Apparently they even did it before they understood each other too, but that didn't last long after I got here," the digimon replied.

"Alright then," she said nodding at her brothers, then looking at Jack. "If you finally want to start talking again, just call home. At this point I'm sure you can find a way to translate."

\---

"Call is being transferred from customer service," Metang informed Janice midway through a spirited attempt at reading a technical document aloud.

"A-0 transferred it here?" the Team Lead asked, then looked darkly at the uncertain look on her pokemon. "Or did you just grab the call yourself despite us being in the Box?"

"I am continuing normal monitoring operations," they said calmly, but with just a hint of apology.

"Alright. Charlie 16, can you make us a small room for a moment to take a call in?" Janice asked the local Administrator, who quickly formed a small plain square building around them with a sliding door set in one side. "Open the call, Metang."

A small video window appeared in front of the wall they were facing, revealing an open area with a blue and white pointed face taking up the center of the display. Squeaking and chirps followed, with Metang immediately providing a translation on the bottom of the screen. "Hello," the text read. "I'm [Whistle Wind], my son is currently using your service."

"[Whistle Wind]!" another voice chirped loudly, quickly revealed to be a red and white version of the same creature. "Psychic translation does not work over these things, she can't understand you any better than the last one!"

"Actually the DSS Troubleshooter team possesses real time pokemon translation capabilities," Janice replied to the pair of Lati. "What is the purpose of this call?"

"Ah, we were having our boy stay in your storage system until his trainer was ready," the Latios replied smugly. "The kid has managed to get three Badges now and done well enough in a fight against myself that we feel he is ready to take [Storm Feather] along with him."

"Ah, you're after retrieval," Janice nodded. "I'm currently with your son inside our Dragon typed trainer Box working on keeping his human translation skills up to date."

"Oh, that's... What do you mean inside your box?" he asked her with a confused sounding whistle. "I thought storage boxes were some kind of fancy pokeball that keeps the pokemon asleep or something until they were needed again?"

"Typical box storage systems are simply an improved version of pokeball storage," the Troubleshooter Lead replied thoughtfully. "DSS storage instead uses artificial digital worlds to keep pokemon in a more ranch style area where the pokemon can further work on their skills and interact with others. Did you setup the contract, or was the trainer in charge of that? An explanation of the differences should have been provided then."

"I told you they were serious about that," the Latias told her mate. "Although I still don't understand how it works. If you're in there can you demonstrate?" she continued with an accusing chirp.

"Charlie 16, you can remove the building. Latios' parents want to speak with him," she said to Metang to have him transmit to the Administrator. Prompting the plain structure to vanish rapidly.

"Mom and dad?" the young Latios said floating over to look at the video image. "Wait, is it time?" he asked with hopeful surprise.

"You look a bit stronger," his father said looking at the mountainous area around them with wide eyes. "Where exactly are you?"

"Inside of my Box," Charlie 16 said nervously moving into view. "I am Administration Porygon Charlie 16. I'm in charge of providing a safe location for Dragon typed pokemon who trainers currently don't have room for on their teams and such."

"[Storm Feather], how would you describe the, world, you have been staying in?" the older Latios asked uncertainly.

"Luster Wing's Mountain but easier to reach," the younger one said easily. "And somebody gave her the power to remake the caves however she wanted."

The two elder Lati turned to stare at the Latios shaped Porygon blankly. "You have Legendary Lands you are using for storing random pokemon?" the Latias asked with utter confusion.

"I still mostly disagree that myself and my siblings are Legendary pokemon, despite your son's arguments on the topic," the local Administrator replied sighing.

"He's comparing you to a Latias that is so tightly bound to the mountain she lives on that she cannot leave it for very long, and feels damage done to it as if the blows were upon her body," the father clarified, watching the understanding flinch of the digital pokemon.

"That is a specific example that you actually know?" Janice asked slowly.

"We travel to her mountain periodically. We've been mostly staying there while [Storm Feather] is growing up," he replied. "Although now that he's traveling with a trainer I guess we might resume our wanderings." He nuzzled his mate as he said this. "So, before we take him our how about you explain this a bit more to us?"

\---

"Well, now that the third triplet is gone, what is next on our list of things to do?" A-0 asked in the uneasy silence that had followed the clipped goodbyes given to the other Serperior.

"Well, until Janice gets back you're still in charge of manning the place for any issues," Shawn said calmly. "And we need at least one team on hand to deal with them when they happen."

"I want to at minimum show Tyranomon a battle if I can," Grant told the group. "I'd prefer one between pokemon on two different teams, that way there are two trainers involved."

"I thought we had recordings and TV?" Gazimon asked. "If you just want an in person battle we can wait for Grim to have another challenger."

"He's trying to ask for you without doing it directly," Dugtrio cut in bluntly. "I think he's hoping to see what you do against Tyrantrum." The fossil hunter looked uneasy at this explanation, but nodded to confirm the accusation.

"You want me to fight another giant dinosaur in front of him?" the digimon asked with a bit of a laugh. "Alright, what is he looking like?"

"Tyrantrum hasn't really been trained since his evolution. He's worked a bit on his own to stay about the same level as you," Kabutops told the rabbit like monster thoughtfully. "Which is why we don't want him directly against Tyranomon right now, as they have a good sized gap there."

"I'm fine with that if the Investigators can handle being the ones staying here," Shawn agreed. "Should be a good way to get an idea on how any other revived digimon react to combat."

"That's fine with me," A-0 told the group. "Although I'm still a bit worried about your sister. Is she going to be fine getting home?"

"We're actually not that far from home," Jack answered. "I think we are about three days away if you made good time, and she always liked scouting ahead to cool off when I did something particularly stupid."

"Far enough that it takes a while to get there, but too close to typically justify a vacation trip," Serperior said jokingly. "I've honestly been expecting mom to be the one who finally went this far to see us over something."

A small flash then brought Janice, Metang, and the LAS back to the Lab. "Well, we're back down to just our apparently Legendary Porygon now," she said to the group looking somewhat conflicted. "The Latios' parents contacted us to let us know his trainer has hit three Badges. I've confirmed their credentials and sent him back."

"We also have a description provided of an active Legendary pokemon exhibiting notable metaphysical aspects similar to Box Porygon," the LAS added. "Making the comparison between their abilities clear."

"Really? Huh," Serperior replied looking thoughtful. "Anyway, you just missed my sister showing up to yell at us, and we were just about to show Tyranomon a battle in person to cool off afterwards."

"Ah, so its been that kind of day then," the Troubleshooter Lead acknowledged moving over to her station. "LAS, go with them to record the new dino's reactions. It should be a good way of determining how effective any revived by Upload will be."

\---

Tyranomon stood at the edge of the path and looked down at the two traveling trainers who had stopped to join in watching the event. The humans had both allowed their partners out to join in, a large canine and an equally large insect. The casual way they reacted to the sudden battle between the other large dinosaur and the rodent was unnerving. Unlike the blood sports enjoyed by Etemon and the other dark powers they seemed to care about the actual combat skill more than causing damage to each other, and yet he could not think of a place other than those staged fights where this sort of thing was typically done.

Gazimon was easily standing across from Tyrantrum, both clearly ready for a fight. The larger digimon could not quite understand why the other dino was taking the rabbit monster so seriously even if he had been modified. Shawn stood at his digimon's side of the arena watching coldly with his unnatural red eyes.

"Try to keep him above the ground, Tyrantrum," Grant told the fossil pokemon from the other side, seeming quite nervous about the match. Tyranomon knew that this human was supposed to be helping him get back into fighting shape, but couldn't help but be worried about the idea. They did not seem to even consider that he might not want to fight, and they did so sincerely enough he was sure the idea had not even occurred to them.

"See if you can stay on the surface," Shawn calmly told Gazimon, the latter nodding in agreement. The small puff of purple flames that the digimon then somehow made was an oddity on its own.

"Are the combatants ready?" the jellyfish shaped digimon asked from where she was apparently acting as a sort of referee. The strange polygonal digimon that were apparently common here were also making the resurrected digimon rather nervous with how primitive they looked. The two sides both nodded to her while remaining ready to fight. "Begin when ready."

Tyranomon's eyes grew wide as Gazimon took this as an instruction to blow out a massive breath of purple flames that Tyrantrum slid to the side to try and avoid. The dinosaur still ended up in the edge of the blast, but quickly countered with a wave of rocks torn out of the ground in an instant. Gazimon mostly dodged this by hopping along the wave, but was hit by smaller rocks pinging off the larger ones into the air.

"Close in on him," Grant instructed his pokemon, who gladly charged in close. The dinosaur's tail began to glow in purple color similar to the flames, and he swung it expertly at his smaller opponent. Gazimon's claws began to glow black as well, and the two clipped each other with the attacks as they sacrificed evasion to ensure that their own blow hit.

"Stick to flames," Shawn said with cold detachment that reminded Tyranomon unpleasantly of the dark forces. He could see why the Gazimon would respect someone like that, and also was quite glad he had avoided being under that trainer's care. The smaller digimon followed the instruction by jumping back and blasting out another wave of oddly colored flame large enough to have come from Tyranomon himself.

Tyrantrum simply took the attack this time, his body seeming to almost glow with energy even as light scorch marks covered him where the flames met. Gazimon cut off his attack and began moving to dodge at this, apparently knowing something regarding this strange tactic. The digital dinosaur was still surprised when the end result was a beam of force that clipped Gazimon solidly sending him tumbling for a moment.

Gazimon panted slightly after the hit, but used this to hide a third blast of flames that sent Tyrantrum down on a knee. The two combatants looked over each other, before sighing and shaking their heads.

"Seems to be a tie," Shawn said calmly moving forward to look over Gazimon. "I think he's actually been practicing rather well," he continued pointing at the tired dinosaur.

"Yeah, I think so too," Grant agreed returning the fossil pokemon to his ball. "What do you think Tyranomon?"

"A battle mad mutant Gazimon is terrifying," he told the group uneasily. "But not as much as a world where that serious of a fight can just happen and be seen as an everyday thing." The two travelers next to him had watched with interest, but without any surprise at what had happened. They seemed a bit uncertain about his ability to speak, and looked outright confused by his current statement, but were taking the events calmly.

"So you're a traveler from another world then?" one of them asked curiously.

"In a way. I suspect that if I want to go back to that world I might need to learn to fight in this one," the large digimon reluctantly admitted to the group as a whole. "So, I am willing to work with you, Grant. I simply ask that you do not push too strongly for me to wish to fight so easily."

"I think we can manage that much," the fossil hunter said, sounding a bit uncertain, but Tyranomon could tell he was sincere.

\---

Anderson simply nodded towards Executive Thomas as he left the Hackware lab. "I'm quite sorry you had to deal with that," he told their new ally once their leader was out of earshot. "He is rather, set in his ways."

"I can comprehend needing to put on appearances to satisfy the one currently in power," the still damaged digimon said looking over the excess electronics that they had available with a crinkle of its remaining eye. "However, the reward is worth it, as a digital world is clearly necessary for my work to properly occur."

"We have been trying for one ourselves for a while now," Absol told him with a bit of a smile. "So we are quite grateful that you were able to help us convince him to let us find one."

"Not a problem at all," the digimon said shuffling awkwardly on two legs. "You are such fascinating digimon to work with, and I am familiar with how to repair this damage." His tone one of old rage when speaking of the injuries he possessed after their attempt at revival.

"We have a couple of other raids planned," Alice contributed cautiously. "Some are for places we might find supplies for you to use."

The digimon smiled widely. "That would be quite wonderful my dear."


	31. 2-0D Fossil Found

\--- Fossil Found ---

"Can I take joining up with you back?" Tyranomon asked a day later when it turned out that digimon did not normally improve at the rate of pokemon. Grant's team was outside working with him in an attempt at practice fighting to improve his condition.

"His energy readings are not reacting as we expected," the LAS sadly informed her team as they looked over the tired digimon. "Energy by default rebuilds to original value after rest, and only prolonged exercise results in any noticeable change. 'Prolonged' in this case being approximately 8 hour blocks for update to statistics to occur, with end result of training being well below pokemon standard for his level equivalent." She began to display vital statistics on her surface panels facing the team. "Level rating system is likely nonviable for his use, as development in some areas appears to be capped based on his data structure."

"So long story short Gazimon was probably right to apparently freak out about how fast he was advancing," Kabutops asked the digital life form, aware of the event from her explanation of the last attempt to train a digimon.

"That seems to be correct. It greatly resembles my own issues with improving in combat capacity," she agreed nodding.

"Why wouldn't it? We're both digimon aren't we?" the dinosaur asked voicing his confusion on that topic.

"You think she counts as a digimon?" Quagsire questioned sounding interested in the idea.

"She's really primitive looking, and uses that weird energy everyone here has some, but otherwise she looks like a digimon to me," he confirmed with an annoyed grumble after getting a translation from Grant.

"We have worked out that the new digimon compatibility modifications to a pokeball is sufficient to allow for my own storage," the LAS confessed. "I have been putting off getting one to prevent Salamence from knowing that issue is no longer present."

"Maybe we should just let her do it," Dugtrio complained. "Turn off the ability to let her do it to other pokemon, and let her just live with that change."

"Not understanding most of a conversation is really weird you know," Tyranomon commented earning a laugh from Kabutops.

"It really is," the fossil pokemon agreed. "But we want to give you a better idea of the side effects before trying to give you the ability to understand pokemon."

"Deepstone Labs has been hit," Shawn called out to the group. "Raid is already over, but we think we've traced the staging base they took the loot."

\---

"Fossil revival equipment and stored fossils. Anyone else thinking that they are going for the same stuff we used to get Tyranomon back?" Jack asked the group as they gathered for another raid on what was hopefully an active Upload base.

"They should already have most of the gear they needed," Grant said concerned. "Although they might be after information, boxes of old notes and such." He then looked over at Janice seriously. "I want to go on this attack."

"Tyranomon isn't combat ready yet is he?" she asked him seriously. "I'd prefer to stick with our mix of law enforcement and high end fighters on an actual raid."

"He's good enough as a backup, and we can always reinforce them if things go badly," Shawn countered. "I'd also give us an idea on if Upload has seen one of them yet. Their reaction could tell us if they still needed this stuff to actually revive digimon."

"He's probably not rested enough right now, and he really doesn't like actually fighting," Grant admitted. "But the rest of us should be able to handle any pokemon or swarms of Hackware."

"I think I'd like to try and fight without Shawn," Jack told the group. "At least to try and see how I stack up with what's left of my team."

"I agree," Investigator Roberts said. "We need to make sure we can all perform assaults on Upload held worlds, or to bring in more teams that can, before we move forward to the next step."

"Depending on how spread out their bases are we probably will still need additional forces," A-0 told the group looking over the data they had on the raid. "Grant, I hate to say it, but we need more data manipulators who can create lockdowns. I'm sure I can teach LAS how to do it," the Porygon told him, leaving unsaid what that meant for a creature converted into a LAS.

"I have located another Metang willing to combine," Janice's machine like pokemon said to the group. "Once completed I will possess capacity to perform advanced data manipulation tasks."

"We need more information before we try to commit to that kind of thing. I'm fine with Metang doing what they want here, but the other option isn't needed yet," Janice told the group. "Still, it is a good point. Shawn's team will be on standby, A-0 is going with you, and hopefully nothing goes majorly wrong."

\---

"I thought the thing was plastic and electricity!" one grunt called out as Alice watched with total annoyance as another revived digimon smashed its way through their forces, and as another of their Porygon hastily attempted to make an exit with the help of their support Hackware. Then she looked in horror as a series of digital constructs began forming around the exit team, clearly intent on trapping them more throughly.

"Vir, take those out!" she instructed harshly watching the red blasts of energy smash the thin panels apart before they could close. "Get us out 8, leave any of the stuff you can't grab."

The Porygon nodded and quickly punched a hole out using a Worm they had kept on hand just for this situation. However, unlike the previous attack the Upload forces were not prepared for an evacuation, and as a result far more supplies, equipment, and stolen goods were left behind. The Porygon quickly followed out of the hole, leaving behind a single Stone who detonated the portal behind them and then allowed a new polygonal cage to close around it.

Investigator Roberts looked over the rather heavily developed facility critically in the wake of the fight. Grant was busy checking over his new teammate, and Jack had been clearly conscripted by A-0 into helping secure the surviving Hackware units.

The world itself was a data server for a minor company that was notably not known to be a target of theft, and indeed did not have much worth stealing. It had taken the shape of a fairly generic office building, only without any exterior doors and with windows showing seemingly random images from the stored files. The information storage functionality itself had apparently survived the transformation intact enough to allow for normal use, and the Investigator could tell that Upload had gone out of their way to maintain that deception. The file cabinets and communication devices rather clearly left with a good sized space around them to prevent any interference. The living and work areas setup around these items were well used, and the stacks of storage containers showed that the location was heavily used as a storage site for things stolen from other systems.

"Well, we can definitely push them back still," A-0 commented looking over the Stone that had let the others escape. "Did we at least get most of Deepstone's stuff back?" it asked Grant.

The fossil hunter did not respond, his attention captured by a dusty brown rock sitting on top of a crate next to the small container it clearly had been held inside. The stone was clearly the fossil remains of a large bug like creature's claw. "It looks like all but one crate of replacement parts," he finally said walking over to look at the fossil.

"I take it that's the kind that makes Armaldo?" Jack uneasily asked looking at the reaction of the other trainer.

"It is, and there had been a quick apology regarding it in the listing of what was stolen," the fossil hunter confirmed picking up the rock carefully. "Would it be too much trouble if I took this back myself?" he asked cradling the stone like it was an egg.

"It should be fine," Roberts told him. "Let's check the place to make sure we have found everything, and get somewhere to send all of this setup."

"We have some space in Box 201 that I've had Delta 2 set aside for this kind of thing," A-0 told the Investigator. "But we are also working with the warehouse creatures to setup a new digital world for storing the stuff we recover in these counter raids."

"So, are you really going to try and be the pokemon that comes from that?" Jack asked uneasily as they went over the various rooms and the containers within them.

"Try and what?" Tyranomon asked looking at his new trainer.

"Do either of you know what it is like to miss having a tail?" Grant asked calmly looking down at the fossil.

"I can imagine it," the massive digimon said cautiously while Jack simply shook his head. "Vaguely. Are you saying you somehow know what it is like?"

"He spent some time as me," Kabutops told the dinosaur. "I got a chance to try being human, but I didn't like it as much as he liked being a fossil."

Tyranomon looked over at Jack unimpressed. "I do not want to hear the answer to his question anymore," he told his trainer pointing at the Investigator's assistant. "Can I go back into my tiny sphere now?"

"Sure," Grant said slightly discouraged before returning the digimon. Then he turned to look at Jack. "I have turning into one as something I'm considering, but I know it is unlikely to happen. Taking this and using it to bring a new Anorith into the world is likely the closest I will get to trying that for a long time," he answered the other trainer simply.

\---

They returned to the Troubleshooter Lab soon afterwards in the much reduced flash of light of the new transport method. However, Grant continued to glow brightly after the transition completed. After a moment the glow seemed to shift and bend, the fossil hunter's form broadening out while his arms moved closer together. Six small plates extended from his neck, and his back grew larger and spiked, with a beetle like shell splitting just above a newly extending tail with a pair of flat spikes at the end. His head reshaping into a pointed cone, with two small extensions off either side of it.

The glow then receded, leaving behind a mainly blue insect with light yellow lines on his belly and black colored areas on his head, knees, and pointed claws. These claws were opening and closing over the air, as if searching for something. "Wait! Where's the fossil?" a slightly higher version of Grant's voice asked as the new Armaldo lashed its tail in worry, pausing at the sensation.

"Apparently it was consumed in your held item evolution," A-0 told the new pokemon annoyed. "Which is apparently something that can happen to humans."

The new Armaldo looked over its body with clear excitement and consideration, before rapidly taking his pack and belt of pokeballs off. From the former it retrieved a Great Ball quickly, and handed it to Quagsire, who was still staring at her trainer dumbfounded. He then raised one of her arms to set the ball into it, and tapped the button on the ball with a clearly happy smile, vanishing into the sphere with a white flash.

"I'm torn on how to take any of that," Kabutops said in the moment of confused silence that followed, his statement punctuated by the ping of a successful capture. "On one claw I don't want him as my first pokemon, but on the other I'm the only one of us that actually wanted to be a trainer."

Quagsire looked over at her teammate blankly for a moment, before looking down angrily at the pokeball in her palm and tossing it forward to send Grant back out. "Quagsire! Look I'm a-" the former human was cut off by a short blast of water. "Gah, it stings!"

"I, Am, Not, The, Trainer!" she angrily shouted grabbing the Rock/Bug type and pulling him closer. "I do not want to be the trainer!" She then shook him a bit. "Stop making me have to be the sensible one! Kabutops, you're in charge, fix this mess," she finished harshly and went inside of her own pokeball.

"Um, sorry?" the new fossil pokemon said to the small sphere looking rather embarrassed.

"Okay, human turning into a giant bug is what it takes to actually be weird here, good to know I guess," Gazimon said looking dubiously at the odd result. "So, since he wanted this bad enough to start by letting himself get caught I'm guessing that trying to turn him back isn't happening."

"It better not be!" Grant confirmed more strongly than was typical for the fossil hunter. His stance was clearly much less uneasy as well. "I have my claws now." He clacked the two of them quickly. "I have my tail." The appendage wiggled a bit. "I... need some help learning how to fight," he finished looking uneasy.

Shawn sighed and nodded. "Alright, I think I have the basics of that. Although Kabutops probably knows your body style better than I do."

"The first thing would be to see what you were doing while you were in my body," the other fossil said looking over his trainer. "Can you still use Water type moves?"

"Yes," the Armaldo said nodding easily. "There are some that my kind learns naturally." He seemed quite proud at being able to call it his kind. "I mostly want to figure out Metal Claw though," he continued before making his left claw glow just prior to slashing it through the empty air.

"You have just performed that move," Metang dully informed the new pokemon looking at their own metallic claws. "Energy usage is above standard, but results were present."

"Oh," the new pokemon said sounding more typically unsure. "I think I need to see Delta 2 now."

\---

"What happened?" the Chansey shaped Porygon asked dryly while Tyranomon was let out into the larger area to be informed of the change.

"I evolved after carrying a Claw Fossil through a transport," Grant told the pokemon, causing his digimon to blink in utter confusion.

"Humans can evolve?" the dinosaur asked dumbfounded. "What kind of nightmare world is this?"

"One I half expected," Delta 2 replied putting a hand over her face. "Are you willing to get captured so I can use the pokeball scanners?" The new fossil pokemon nodded handing his gear to Kabutops and returning himself. "Or you already have one. I take it there is a reason I don't see Quagsire?"

"I'm in charge for now," Kabutops informed her while providing the ball. "Grant is reacting rather extremely to this whole thing. I think he hasn't thought through what being an Armaldo actually means for him yet."

"Right, give me a moment to check him out," she replied moving the sphere to one of the scanners.

"This is not a normal, right?" the digimon asked watching the events.

"Not in the slightest," Dugtrio told their new teammate uncaring that he could not understand.

"Holding onto a specific item during digital transport can cause evolution in some pokemon species," Delta 2 corrected the pokemon. "However, there has not been a case of this happening to humans before." She continued looking over the results critically. "Do you believe in reincarnation?" she asked the team suddenly after comparing some data.

"Despite what Gazimon thinks about it reincarnation is how our kind works. You would need to destroy a key area of our world to stop it from being what happens to killed digimon," Tyranomon said looking towards Kabutops.

"Quagsire knows more about what fossil pokemon remember than I do," he said finding her ball and calling her out of it.

"What now?" the amphibian asked still angry.

"Has Grant ever known things about the time of fossil pokemon?" the local Administrator asked. "Without being told about them."

Quagsire paused at the statement and considered it carefully. "He knew what was closest to a Kabuto's food," Dugtrio supplied while she thought.

"He's said more than that," the Water/Ground type complained. "Things like how he has trouble swimming because he only knows how to swim without his arms and legs, and a few other things he only partially remembers. As far as I know nobody ever even tried teaching him to swim." She looked seriously at the Porygon. "Why?"

"Because quite a few small unusual features of his body I have seen in prior scans are now quite clearly features of a wild Armaldo," Delta 2 informed her uneasily. "Which I'm starting to suspect that Grant was in a past life."

"Suddenly a joke I heard is not nearly as funny," Dugtrio said thoughtfully. "Right before we came here one of Grant's coworkers mentioned that they found a fossil in a rather strange position, and my trainer guessed exactly where it had been. The coworker joked that maybe Grant had seen the place before."

"Are you saying he might have been carrying his own fossilized remains from a past life?" Kabutops asked sounding uneasy with the concept, and producing a groan from Delta 2.

"That fits," she said looking back at the data. "Damn, that fits what I'm seeing here. His body remembered being one way, but not enough to actually make him that shape without a better reference."

"Returning to a past life's shape isn't unusual where I am from," Tyranomon told the group still utterly perplexed by the events. "Although I guess I'm used to humans being from another world."

The local Administrator picked the trainer's ball back up and let the new Armaldo out again. "Right, quick question. What is your favorite move to use?" she asked him while he was still reforming.

"I've always liked Metal Claw," the new fossil pokemon said easily, then looked slightly confused as to why he had been so clear about the answer.

"That fits the information. I think you were reincarnated," she paused for a moment. "I'm unsure if I should say 'from an Armaldo' or 'as a human' in this situation."

"Both are valid aren't they?" Grant asked sounding conflicted. "I'm the best we had for helping fossils adapt," he then continued more to himself than anything.

"Ugh, I'm the trainer here aren't I?" Quagsire said burring her face in her forelimbs. "You've always let me handle the actual combat side of things, haven't you? I just saw you handling the fossils so well I thought you were just specialized."

"I guess it might be better to say I was handling the other fossils well," the Armaldo acknowledged apologetically. "I guess this will change how I'm working with you a bit, Tyranomon. I'm going to need some conditioning as well now."

"You're registering around level 40," Delta 2 informed him. "Which is about the performance you were managing when you and Kabutops were switched, and from the evidence I've seen is a bit too high for a normal human turned pokemon."

"So around the same as Kabutops and Gazimon," the transformed trainer told his digimon. "That should let the two of us have a alright match up."

"Delta 2, go ahead and give me human speech," Quagsire dully said with her face still covered. "He's not going to be up to leading for a while now."

"Considering I have to try and work out what paperwork we need to do here to keep him listed as himself that probably is for the best," the Porygon agreed. "Right, here's what I want you to do, Grant. Go outside, have a battle to see what you know how to do like that, and then go see Alpha 45 about the pokemon/human conversion method she's trying to work out for Shawn."

"I thought that wasn't something she was looking into yet?" Kabutops asked taking a closer look at his fellow fossil.

"My sister loves that kind of complicated thing, if you could not tell from how she apparently got Acid Armor working for just about anyone," Delta 2 said with fond exasperation. "She definitely started on something that complex as soon as she thought about it, which means she should at least have the ability to tell how much of you is still human after all this." She then sighed. "I also have some news for LAS."

"Good news or bad news?" Grant asked suddenly serious.

"I don't think she's going to like it, but it should be good news," the Administrator told him. "I have finished analysis of the mental changes that occur with her conversion process, and of the new advancements in digital life form pokeball storage. The latter means that now we can safely contain both herself and anyone she converts inside of pokeballs with a known modification, and we can modify an existing pokeball for a pokemon who undergoes the conversion." The Porygon walked over to a display on the wall and brought up a complex diagram of before and after the recording devices were altered. "The mental changes are incredibly minor, and if anything fall into the category of evolution knowledge. The very basic information that lets a pokemon use their body after they evolve without any problems."

"So anyone who is converted remains themselves, but they need to learn to use their new abilities properly," Kabutops said sadly. "We have to tell LAS it is safe for Salamence to get the conversion."

"Like I said, she's not going to like it despite it being good news," Delta 2 said calmly. "I'll leave it up to you when this information is shared, or at least try to. Al and Be of the converted recording devices seem to have decided that they want to go above and beyond to find files regarding their current situation, and I can't be sure they won't let it slip the next time the Investigators are there for TM support."

\---

"What has happened to my trainer?" the LAS asked dangerously looking over the group assembled outside to give Grant a trial fight in his new form.

"I finally evolved?" the Armaldo nervously told the digital life form. "I want to have a battle to celebrate."

The LAS turned to look over the others clearly unimpressed. "I had thought we agreed to try and stop him from doing this to himself," she buzzed at them.

"He quite possibly found a fossil of a previous life, and evolved from taking it back with him," Kabutops told her walking forward to act as Grant's opponent.

"Today has been very strange," Tyranomon said leaning down to look at the other digital life form. "I had to fight a bunch of tiny digimon being used by evil humans, then I discovered that my human wanted to not be human, and now he's some strange bug monster. Also we have bad news for you."

"I have to transform the dragon, don't I?" the analysis system asked dully.

"You don't have to," Quagsire said still sounding uneasy with speaking like a human. "But it is a safe option to do it, and we have the pokeballs now. Which means we're out of excuses why not to do it as soon as she knows about it."

"I personally want you to have a pokeball pretty soon," Grant told the jellyfish shaped creature, earning a harsh look from their amphibian teammate.

"You are not in charge for now, mostly because you just made me catch you," the Water/Ground type complained. "Now get ready for this fight of yours while I talk things over with LAS."

"Right, until one of us surrenders?" Grant asked his fellow fossil pokemon, getting a somewhat exasperated nod in reply.

Kabutops immediately followed his agreement by charging forward and attacking with a rapid series of slashes of his long claws. The new Armaldo countered by easily deflecting the rapid but low powered blows off his armored shell. Grant then struck back with glowing claws, just barely missing the more agile pokemon with one slash, but hitting slightly with the second hardened claw. Kabutops responded with a strong blast of water that clearly hit hard, prompting Grant to slide backwards away from his teammate.

One he was a good distance away the Armaldo lifted his arms, causing a number of rocks to pull themselves from the ground and then shoot towards the other fossil pokemon. Kabutops nodded as he tried to slash through the stones, clearly taking some damage while trying to stay stable through the attack. For a short time both pokemon shifted to sending blasts of water at each other while closing again to slashing range, with Grant clearly taking more damage from the exchange.

After one final pair of slashes at each other the pair halted breathing heavily. "I'm done," Grant admitted. "Maybe overdid a bit."

"Well, you definitely know how to fight," Quagsire commented looking over at the intimidated form of Tyranomon. "What do you think?" she asked the digimon.

"I think that if the Digidestined were from this world then I probably would have been a lot worse off during their assault on the pyramid," the dinosaur said uneasily. "Considering that I died during that, you are all quite frightening to me. Usually digimon who go out of their way to fight like this are Viral, and a bit obsessed with fighting." He turned to look seriously at the former human. "I'm willing to try and help against these evil digimon you're fighting now, but when it is over I'd like to not have to fight anymore."

The entire team looked at him with embarrassment at the blunt statement. "We didn't ask about that, did we?" Dugtrio questioned quietly from the edge of the arena.

"No, we didn't," Grant agreed then turned to face the digimon with a serious look. "I apologize. We should be able to keep your place in the fight to a minimum easily enough."

The red scaled monster looked at the sudden change in their mood and sighed. "I don't think I'll ever understand this world. I said I'd help you fight this 'Upload', and I will," he told them all roughly. "Just keep in mind that I want some peace when it is all over."

\---

"What's the verdict?" Janice asked as Grant's team returned to the Troubleshooter Lab. The rest of the group was in the middle of going over data recovered from the Upload staging and storage base.

"My new Armaldo apparently is a reincarnation of an ancient one. Possibly even the specific one from the fossil that evolved him," Quagsire answered bluntly no longer needing translation. "Also he's just a bit less battle ready than Kabutops, so the team has a good chunk more fighting power."

The Investigators looked at this response with some degree of confusion, while the rest of the Troubleshooter team simply nodded and said a brief congratulations to the team. "Alright then, we have a good source of information here," Janice said to the annoyed looking amphibian. "It seems to be a part of a communications system that allows Upload to contact their field units and coordinate their attacks. Including some information on other support bases like this one."

"We still need to go over the data itself, but I think I can use this to figure out where their main base is," Gazimon said holding onto one of his black panes. "This setup we found is kinda like the Dark Network was, a system build to mirror the physical world's data transfer network. Which means that it is both a map of the digital spaces they have been using, and the physical transmission lines they use between those."

"Gazimon was on the support team for the Dark Network, and he's been able to explain how this is similar easily enough," Shawn added looking over the group. "If you're up for combat then I think we won't need too much more help to clear out the remaining support bases when we've found them."

\---

"We need to abandon the current secondary bases now if we want to keep most of our forces," Absol told the Executive bluntly while looking at his polygonal red claws.

"And yet you also say we can't just get out of the region entirely either," Thomas countered in a calm tone that was generally an indication he was just humoring you. If he actually cared he would be shouting.

"Our new ally can ensure that we are able to escape to a digital world in a way that they cannot track," Anderson informed him equally disinterested. His attention was on the two massive forms at the back of the room.

"Our 'ally' who claims that an evolution is all your abominations need to take on League level pokemon," the boss of Team Upload countered harshly. "It doesn't seem that different from them to me."

"The second example is prepared for field deployment," the developer said dully. "With your approval I can have it sent to recover more electronic components for use either in the case of an evacuation or of their success."

"I have a better idea, we send the thing to wherever this thing," he pointed at Absol, "thinks the next attack on our bases is going to be, and if it lets us take out one of their pokemon maybe it will be good enough." He then turned and stomped out of the lab.

"One showing up to anywhere but a supply base is actually a minor disaster for our enemies," Absol said calmly. "So long as we keep a close eye on the digimon to learn exactly how he's improving our work."

"The core team?" Anderson asked walking over to the Hackware.

"He can get us out regardless, that much is done bar them getting caught while on mission," the hybrid-pokemon confirmed. "More than that depends on the next couple disasters, particularly the ones I know I'm missing for lack of any upside."


	32. 2-0E Goliath

\--- Goliath ---

"Right, here is what we've figured out," Gazimon started while manipulating the six screens of the wall display to show images relating to his presentation. "Upload has been using six storage sites, one for each Porygon they had, to sort out the stuff they get from their attacks." A document with the numbers 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9 appeared on the top left monitor. Each number had a brief description of the items taken by the site. "These were separated out by what the targets had rather than by any physical proximity. Porygon 3 was in charge of medical supplies, and Porygon 1 was their pokemon raid specialist."

The middle top display changed to a tree structure, with one point at the top, six linked below that, three linked from each of those, and a dotted line going down from that final nodes. "These bases were not where they actually initiated the conversion process and attack from. That was done from a prior attack site from a different supply base. The supply bases themselves are a mix of natural digital worlds and sites that were carefully not attacked. From what we can tell this is where most of their Hackware are created, but actual development is restricted to the main base."

The third monitor on the top row showed the same nodes on the tree as before, only with the dotted lines now extending from the six second tier spots to each other. Points of light moved along the lines of the tree. "Materials stolen were then taken back to the temporary base where the attack originated, where an initial sorting occurred. This determined the order in which the supplies were taken to the storage site." The bottom right monitor now scrolled through a list of items, some colored green, some blue, and some red. "Anything that needed to be distributed to the other supply bases was sent directly between them to keep them stocked on materials stolen by the other operations. Items needed for main base operations were only occasionally sent back to limit exposure of that connection. Unneeded items were directly sold to the black market in set locations, one for each supply base."

The bottom middle screen now displayed a modified version of the tree above it. The second tier nodes were now without any node connections below them, and the first two were colored red. "We changed this drastically. Both by taking out their Porygon so they can't specialize as easily, and by compromising all sites they previously attacked." The digimon smiled harshly as he said this statement. "Which means they either need to setup new sites that are hidden just like their supply bases, or risk the bases more directly when they make a new attack." The bottom left display now changed to show the same six numbers, but with data relating to the transfer address shown. "They were in a hurry, so they made the mistake of trying the second one."

"We now have location information on all remaining secondary sites," Metang told the assembled group. "Including physical world equivalents and black market contacts."

"Unfortunately, we also know about a number of smaller locations they have at least some established presence inside of," A-0 added. "Sites that need to be cleared before we can move on the remaining central bases, but that are not as clearly targets of note. Gazimon's experience with similar systems is the only reason we managed to extract this information before the security on it rendered it irretrievable."

"The only reason that worked is because the grunts needed that information too," Gazimon told the others. "I've had to deal with the emergency measures that stuff has before. Only good news about it is that the main base should have all their high end equipment."

"The Porygon themselves are now only being deployed on actual missions," Janice said bluntly. "They tried to hide the added transfers to keep them back at the home base, but we have most of the civilian power usage information for the entire region now. We know which addresses are digital worlds on someone else's property, and which one is the physical location of their main base."

"But we still need to assault a physical base," Jack said nodding at the information. "We want to hit all four of the remaining storage sites at once, don't we?"

"Metang will be upgrading to Metagross, A-0 is going with Grant, I will have the Pokedex and Gazimon," Shawn said before taking a deep breath, "and Salamence will be given the option to become a LAS."

"Adapting to these changes will be done while we hit the remaining tertiary sites," the LAS said clearly upset by the news. "Salamence's change will be the first as she will require the most training to use data manipulation to prevent Porygon escape."

\---

Grant would be one to admit that he was in no position to complain about radical changes to one's own body structure given he was now quite clearly an Armaldo, but it was quite clear he still disliked the excited expression on Salamence's face while his teammate slowly built up the resolve to use the Analyzer on the dragon. The LAS's small drone was moving forward steadily, but at a rate that would be clearly slow to anyone used to their use in combat. Everyone aware of that was nervous about the dragon's reaction to the reluctance when she learned of it.

They were performing the change in a large room inside of Box 201, with everyone present either directly in the room, or in the case of Janice and Metang using a communication window. Delta 2 and A-0 were both watching the events with trepidation, and Gazimon was ready to use his evolution to provide additional data manipulation support in the case of an emergency.

After another moment the blue scaled dragon simply walked forward and lifted the small dome onto her head herself. "Please hurry up," she said before her face froze as the drone latched on.

"Now to not make her do embarrassing things while I have control over her," the LAS dryly said. "Please begin active scanning. This will be the first time with an actual pokemon."

"How long will the energy drain take?" Serperior asked watching the process seriously.

"Anomalous readings are already present," the jellyfish shaped digital life form said with a sigh. "Her willingness appears to be creating additional compatibility with the energy-" the LAS cut off and floated back while the dome sank into Salamence's body. "Contact with drone lost. Process is no longer able to be aborted," she sighed shaking her body. "Beginning advanced scans."

The Dragon/Flying type's body then shuddered once, before expanding to be slightly larger. In particular her body widened outward, spreading her wings farther apart to allow a row of three polygonal domes to rise out of her back. Two more domes formed at the end of the row next to her tail on either side of her body. Two blocky tendrils then grew from either side of the middle dome, at around the middle of where her wings attached, and another two from the back of the rearmost domes pointing backwards alongside her tail.

"Ugh, okay that was odd," Salamence said staggering, her new tendrils waving in the air awkwardly. "Wow. That looks pretty, but I kinda wish I knew what it meant." She turned her head back and forth blinking rapidly, and then closing her eyes. "LAS, I can still see when I close my eyes."

"Perhaps you have actually looked at me and realized that I do not have eyes?" the digital life form asked sarcastically. "I will attempt to tell you how to shut down the visual sensor feed as a test of machine language." She then let out a burst of noise that the dragon nodded at thoughtfully.

"Was she supposed to learn human?" Investigator Roberts asked uneasily at having clearly understood the dragon.

"I'm speaking human?" his pokemon asked blinking again while she processed the sound. "Oh, oh. That is a lot of information," she then said sounding intimidated. "Uhh, I think I need some help here."

"Suddenly her retaining the same mind seems like it might be a worse option," the LAS said still clearly mad about the whole thing. "Delta 2, what is her status?"

"She has no display surfaces, no idea how to manipulate data, a sensor array she doesn't understand, and I don't think she's up for controlling Analyzers yet," the Porygon summarized the negatives of the situation. "On the other hand all of the new structures are at her prior toughness, so when we fix all of those she should be able to perform combat data manipulation."

"Uh, the tentacle/vine things are a bit weird too," Salamence said nervously lashing the appendages. "I think I can pull the two by my wings into my body, but not the other two."

"Right, looks like things are off to a relatively stable start," Janice cut in from the Lab sounding tired. "Shawn, head back out with your team. I want to start clearing out the last of those minor bases while she's getting ready for the main assault."

\---

The latest target was another rapidly created and easy to pack up base like they had found in the Pokemon Center's storage system. This world was a large cabin in the middle of a dense woodland, with evidence that the digital trees had been cleared further away from the main building by Upload forces.

Said forces were already scrambling to respond, being unusually prepared for the attack. "I think they've started using their Absol to check where we're hitting them," Serperior muttered darkly while Gazimon used the Data Cube to become Youkomon and lock down any transport attempts.

"Which brings up the question why they weren't doing that before," Youkomon said opening panes, and then looking wide eyed at one of them. "Champion detected."

"Serp, take on the swarms. Youko, see if you can take it out. I'll handle the rest," Shawn said before opening the Pokedex with one hand while forming a blade of grass with the other. "Janice, be ready to pull us out. They have a big one already."

"Should have brought Jack," Youkomon said opening a number of panes to prepare options. "I think this will help a bit," he continued waving his tails as two of the panes burst and creating a number of glowing purple symbols across the area between them and the building.

"Can't just hold back, we're going to need to hit them harder on our own later," Serperior cautioned before sending a wave of leaves towards the first swarm of Dos covering the Upload forces exiting the building.

The first forces out were a pair of pokemon that took one look at the three they were up against and turned to run. They were followed by four trios of Vir and a pair of Crabs that took in their opponents then formed a rough defense where the more heavily armored Rookies stood in front to protect the ranged attackers while they sent their red bolts down the field.

Following them out was a red glacier of a creature. The new Hackware was mainly a massive block, the front of it split into three vertical segments to taper on the sides, and having a horizontal break three fourths the way up its body to meet at the top in a sort of cone. Looking on the top it was possible to tell that only two segments made up the back of the creature. The base of this massive structure was a flattened five sided shape, with all but the rearmost corner featuring a more robust version of a Crab's legs extending downward to hold it up. Two more limbs were at the sides of its body, attached where the upper and lower segments formed a sort of point almost like a shoulder. These were massive single bladed claws much like Kabutops had, if considerably simpler in construction. Two dark black circles sat at the corners where the inner segments met with the outer ones, clearly functional as eyes.

"Ok, that looks like a Regi," Serperior said somewhat intimidated by the bulky creature as it moved to stand between the two Crabs to join in acting as a protective barrier. "Shawn, any information?"

"Pokedex says its a 'Goliath', Dark/Steel type Champion Viral," the trainer quickly said looking critically at their opponents while quickly putting the device away. "That's a pretty good way of resisting our group isn't it?" he asked harshly noting the way their own types and attribute worked in the creature's favor.

"Serp, I'll take the little ones," Youkomon said looking uneasily at the new target. He then swept his tails in an arc causing the row of symbols furthest from the Hackware to glow and burst into serpentine dragons of fire that swept forward towards his targets. The massive new Hackware quickly moved to intercept, creating a pair of glowing red blades that slashed through two of the attacks and simply absorbing the third seemingly unharmed by it. "Actually, better reason, you deal with the thing because I can't."

"Type disadvantages suck," the snake pokemon said liquefying and flowing forward. "Protect the fox, Shawn," he told his trainer clearly meaning 'keep yourself back where it is safe'.

"Goliath, cover the evacuation," one of the Upload grunts said, the human and pokemon members of the group remaining safe inside the building. The massive digital life form moved to meet Serperior's charge easily, slashing with red energy coated claws at the blob of serpent.

The Grass type split around the twin strikes while extending tendrils out at various parts of his body to give a series of slashes of his own. His digimon teammate took advantage of the focus the advanced Hackware needed for dealing with him by bombarding the other red creatures with dragon fire.

\---

Salamence looked down at her first Analyzer with a bit of excitement, the drone having been made just after Shawn's team had left. "That was all it took to stop them from changing others, right?" she asked still quite excited about the changes to her body. The LAS nodded at her slightly tired with dealing with the shear joy the pokemon had over all of the alterations.

"You don't look much different," Growlithe said to her teammate a touch uneasy. "Can you smell things better now too?"

Investigator Roberts looked slightly upset with the translation provided of that question, turning to his pokemon to reassure them of their usefulness. "Uh, LAS?" Salamence cut him off nervously looking at the digital life form. "Is it normal for my first thought after hearing that to be trying to take over her body to use her specialized capabilities?"

"That is the reason we have Analyzer drones at all, yes. Incarnated or converted Legendary Analysis Systems are capable of interfacing with and controlling other life forms," the jellyfish monster said strongly. "Which is a complication of the change that we attempted to emphasize to you from the start."

"So, the answer is 'no, but I can try and use your nose'," Growlithe said sighing. "Alright, you wanted this." She then looked thoughtful. "Wait, this means you can help with restraining and containing enemy pokemon."

"That's right, I can," the dragon said happily looking back at her Analyzer.

"Emergency situation everyone," Janice suddenly cut in. "Upload has Champion stage Hackware. Shawn's team is engaging the first one now, and if he can't handle that we need to pull in a lot more people." She turned the floating screen towards where A-0 hovered. "We are accelerating the timetable. Get the dragon trained in locking down digital worlds."

The two Porygon turned to look at Salamence with sinister expressions. "Alright then, one crash course in data manipulation," Delta 2 said darkly causing the dragon to take a step back.

\---

Serperior was making progress in the form of deep gashes in the body of the Hackware, but the increased defenses were clearly present. "The good news is that it seems to have been designed to mostly slow us down," he shouted to the others avoiding another inexperienced blow from his target. The snake pokemon was more than capable of avoiding the Goliath while striking back hard, but only because of the waves of purple flames that once more slammed into the defensive barriers a Stone was using to support the remaining lesser Hackware keeping those smaller enemies from joining the fight.

Youkomon was working double duty further back with Shawn taking out any approaching Dos or Vir. On a couple of tails he was intercepting and blocking Upload's attempts to escape the site, but the remaining ones were focused on creating an artillery barrage to wear down the lesser Hackware that was less resistant to his attacks. "They don't have a Porygon here," the digimon noted sounding casual as his latest attack nearly shattered the second Crab. "Hey, I'm not going down anytime soon. Maybe you should surrender," he then called out to their enemies.

"What's that get us?" a voice shouted back prompting angry responses from the others.

"Well, you won't lose any more of the blocky red guys," the nine tailed fox offered with a wide smile as he sent another wave of dragon fire dragons.

"Might even save the big guy," Serperior added with a grunt as he slashed across the chest of the largest Hackware unit.

"Why should we care about that?" another voice responded, and for an instant the Goliath paused in its attack. The massive unit then changed focus to intercepting Youkomon's attacks.

The digimon noticed immediately. "How about you, blocky? Willing to give up and let us grab them?" he asked the Hackware directly, unfortunately getting a clear twisting of the creature's body in the negative to show it understood perfectly, but was not moved by the argument. "Serp, do me a favor, take it alive if you can."

"Sorry Youko, it's not cooperating," the pokemon said sounding a bit upset himself as the massive digital life form stood strongly to assist the remaining Hackware. "I don't know how far I can keep hitting it without killing it, but we aren't exactly in a position to stop. I can't risk trying to hold him down given what the resisting Crab tried, and he's just going to walk through anything you make out of dragon fire."

The digimon paused for a moment thoughtful at the statement. "I have an idea," he said seriously turning to Shawn. "I think I can capture him, but I can't keep the block on them escaping at the same time. So do we get this 'Goliath' alive, or catch the rest of them?"

His trainer smiled instead of taking the question seriously. "Youkomon, I know A-0. We just went from having time to train Salamence," The mentioned dragon tumbled out of thin air alongside A-0. "To needing her ready yesterday. It's time for a crash course in data manipulation. A-0, have her lock this place down, we have a capture target!"

"Right, you understand machines so we're going about it quickly," A-0 said happily while clearly setting up one first itself. Then the Porygon gave a number of bursts of noise that Salamence paid close attention to while stealing glances at the capture attempt.

The fox monster waved his tails deliberately while Serperior moved to occupy, but not directly attack, the Champion. Youkomon drew a number of lines in dirt that formed as they touched the ground, and then opened a pair of panes made out of similar material. These two then shattered into dust as the symbol lit up, and the ground under the Goliath suddenly seemed to melt causing the creature to fall in up to just below its eyes and then solidify again.

"A good start, now how do we stop it from digging its way out?" Serperior asked raising an array of vines to tangle the remaining Crab and Stones.

"Uh, can't I just do that?" Salamence asked creating three Analyzers using her rearmost domes. "I mean, I think I know how to do that much."

The Troubleshooters simply looked at her for a moment before turning back to their enemies. "Okay, that should work," Shawn agreed tiredly.

\---

"That's one way to do it," Delta 2 told the group a short time later having collected the new Hackware to see if it would survive its wounds. She sounded a bit sick over whatever it was she had seen. "My brother, Charlie 13, is quite right about the stuff they have being more heavily damaged after they tried moving it. So whoever they have working on this simply used the data as a catalyst to evolve a Crab." She shook her head in disgust. "It appears to have been taken from Monochromon remains."

"Sadly that is not an unheard of thing for digimon to do to each other," Tyranomon told the group somberly. "We are made of data, and as you can see from your attempts at improving my own capabilities we do not advance quickly under typical circumstances. Evil digimon are rarely above using parts of who they find useless to improve others, or themselves."

"Which means they might have gotten someone who's alive," Gazimon said smoothing down his fur nervously. "I don't know how many of the other Gazimon were looking to get ahead, but I do know one of them was looking into that kind of thing." He turned to face the digital dinosaur fully. "I personally thought she was just making up excuses to sound stronger, but if she knows some of those things you've heard about maybe Upload is helping with the rest."

"Doubtful," Shawn commented looking calm despite the topic. "They don't have a limitless supply of dead digimon. I doubt they all actually know about it because they weren't too concerned with getting that data back."

"None of the technical personnel were there," A-0 realized. "They sent it alone."

"Or left it behind," Investigator Roberts noted. "Would they need the gear they stole to do this?"

"No, it is a much simpler process," Delta 2 confirmed. "It is also rather heavily hidden. The only reason I can tell is that I know how to check for the remnants of other creatures inside of one creature. Whoever made this was hiding it from the other developers too, as it is actually operating a bit worse than optimal because of that attempt at hiding it."

"What does that mean?" Jack asked sounding more confused than disgusted.

"That there is a digimon helping them by doing something it doesn't think they will approve of," Tyranomon said confidently. "Likely the mentioned Gazimon, or at a remote possibility some higher level digimon that got caught in the Dark Network along with the rest of us."

"Are we ready for the next part?" Janice asked concerned. "Metang is already working on their evolution to assist in the raid, but that's sounding like a lot faster than we expected to get more Champion stage opponents."

"To hide this takes time. Assuming that this isn't the first we're looking at two or three since the parts raid they pulled before we revived Tyranomon," Delta 2 said confidently. "Total could increase to three or four by our previous timetable."

"We still should hurry up. The difference could vary, and that might have been a test example," Shawn cautioned. "We might even be wrong and they were trying to hide it from us if we managed to capture it."

"They don't know we can control creatures," Salamence said sounding calmer than she had been most of the day. "I'm the first thing that could do that we've sent to an actual battle, and we only just started with the barrier containers. The Goliath was even working its way out when I took it over. They couldn't have assumed we would capture it instead of killing it."

\---

Absol suddenly staggered a short time after he predicted the attack would come. "Shit," he swore with wide eyes. "There was an option I didn't see."

"What do you mean?" Alice asked worried. "I thought you knew that it would be something of a disaster for them?"

"When I trained myself to find the paths that benefited me the most, the disasters that helped me out, I did so by focusing my ability on those disasters," the pokemon explained and started to pace. "Which means I have a lot less ability to see disasters that don't benefit me. Anything short of a city getting destroyed and I can't see it at all if it can't help me." He shook his head uneasily. "I can try and find them by looking at holes in the path, places where the disasters afterward have a change that I can work out."

"So, if you can't see ones that don't help how did you miss something?" Bob asked confused.

"I saw a number of disasters afterward that led from this attack, and two main ways we could benefit from losing the Goliath," the Hackware hybrid complained. "One was the grunts getting out because of it's presence, putting us in the clear with Thomas for a while. The other was that if they killed it then DSS would be more reluctant to strike at Hackware going forward."

"I do hope we have not lost it for no gain," Anderson said sadly looking at the remaining Champion.

"The ones afterward were generally better off than when we did not try at all," Absol replied digging claws into the floor. "Thomas would not have been too kind to us if we outright went against his desires."

"How did they take it alive?" Bob asked suspiciously. "I doubt it let them, and there isn't much that could contain something that powerful without hitting it hard enough to kill it first."

"Maybe the new evolution," Alice suggested uneasily. "The Gazimon was able to do something to the security system."

"Analysis of the recovered information shows that he merely subverted a lock on friendly forces identifiers," Anderson said thoughtful. "I have already made sure myself that modifications of that nature are difficult to create in our Hackware. What they used is a question, but unless we are able to recover anyone from the site we won't be able to tell how." He turned to face them all. "Now, we must prepare to deal with this loss and the issues it leads us to."


	33. 2-0F Gathering Forces

\--- Gathering Forces ---

The Troubleshooter Lead looked over the edge of the forest nervously. She was not sure how exactly her Metang had found another so that they could evolve, and from how they were avoiding that question it seemed to be one of those things that humans weren't supposed to be told.

Watching the pair of blue machine like pokemon speak incomprehensibly, she wondered when she really entered the rare group of humans that even had the chance to learn such things. She had not only met a Legendary pokemon through her work, but had helped him with a minor problem and spoken of other Legends with his parents.

"It is agreed," Metang said translating their own words. "They are interested in the advanced capabilities we possess, and willing to be the secondary component of the result."

"They are?" Janice asked looking at the other pokemon with clear confusion. "Doesn't that mean they won't be..." She simply ran out of words to describe the idea of just becoming a part of another creature.

"Their minds will contribute information and personality traits. The two minds that currently make us up are a primary and secondary," Metang began to explain, with the other one looking over at her seeming nervous now. "Both contribute to any decisions or actions, but in the case of disagreement or rapid action the primary is the deciding mind. The secondary mind thinks independently, allowing for consideration unconnected to the direct actions."

"Metagross are more thoroughly merged," the other Metang now said, and looking grateful as her own pokemon translated for them. "Mental actions are not as clearly separate, but overall capacity increases greatly when needed. Your pair has the position, and it provides an interesting opportunity to us. We are willing to give autonomy for the greater capacity and the place on your team."

Janice considered that quietly while they spoke more with each other. "You're making sure I like them," she said after a short while. "How much will you change?" she asked carefully keeping any worry out of her voice.

"Overall alteration is not known to be greater than typical evolution," the new Metang said, now clearly nervous.

Seeing how hard they were trying to convince her she nodded. "Metang, I meant it when I said it was up to you about this," she told her pokemon forcing herself calm. "If you want to do this, I will be able to handle whatever happens."

The pair nodded a touch uneasily, then after one final brief exchange they turned to face away from each other with her Metang facing her directly. They then slowly moved backwards until they came into contact with a strange click sound. The two then began to glow in their kind's blue color just enough to obstruct their details while the change occurred. Their bodies rather than merging into each other both expanded outwards into a new large disk shaped structure, while their four limbs all expanded in size greatly to match the new scale of their body. Once this rapid alteration was complete the pokemon's glow disappeared revealing the large 'x' shaped bar between their eyes facing the Lead.

"Integration complete," Metagross said clearly and without the typical translation delay. "Operations are available. Verifying code for data manipulation techniques." The last sentence was said with a strange mix of her pokemon's dull tone and a more excited element she was fairly sure belonged to the other Metang as those minds actually got the chance to see the Troubleshooter's work. "Warning, issue found with self translation system," they suddenly said in a confused tone.

"What's wrong with it?" Janice asked concerned, drawing the attention of the newly evolved pokemon.

"Was our statement comprehensible?" they asked thoughtfully.

"Everything you've said so far I think," she replied blinking.

"Program was integrated into base functions during evolution," Metagross said nodding. "Lab computer systems will be required to complete verification. Support of operation is within capabilities."

"Alright then," Janice nodded standing up. "Let's go."

\---

"I have teams prepared to strike the physical locations of all of the remaining Upload assets, including the remaining digital worlds that they have made," Investigator Roberts started looking over the group. "They will attack simultaneously with our own move on the five support sites. Our goal is to take the remaining Porygon units, and the hardware they are using to produce and enhance their Hackware." He turned to look at the information on the targets displayed on the wall monitors.

"We currently do not believe they have created a Champion support unit yet," A-0 said with deliberate calm. "The two Champion stage digimon most represented in the fragment are not well suited to that kind of operation, and adapting either the few that would have such skills for this method, or attempting to use the Dark Network remains themselves for that purpose, would not be possible in the time frame we are working at here. Right now is our best chance to hit them before they can replace those Porygon with Hackware."

The others nodded ready for their part in the coming fight. Janice was staying behind with the LAS, both of them most useful as support at the lab. Grant was with A-0 forming a team that was now entirely pokemon, with their larger numbers hopefully making up for their lower level. Jack was going with the newly evolved Metagross, the under leveled pokemon providing data support to the two strong pokemon of the assistant. Roberts was going with just his team, and Salamence assured them she was ready for the task of using her new abilities to capture the target. Shawn was also going with just his two teammates, but as their strongest team he was set to hit the least likely target, and shift to the next site if it was empty. The plan was for whoever finished their fight first to respond to any requests for aid given by the other teams, with the unspoken implication that it would most likely be Shawn's team to do so.

"What is the plan if we run into any more Hackware?" Tyranomon asked from Box 201, where the massive digimon was actually able to fit. "Are we just killing these digimon or is there a plan for capture?"

"We have eight digital life form compatible police balls, two for each team, reserved for high end Hackware and the Absol," Janice replied uneasily. "Goliath or other Champion examples only, as we don't have enough otherwise. Going forward we can make more, but even now the numbers we are encountering make taking the time to attempt capture risky."

"The big problem is that they aren't surrendering when they are beaten," Grant said clicking his claws uneasily. "Most pokemon, even wild ones, will at least attempt to have their life spared when they are near their limit. That point where you run out of defensive energy and start taking real damage."

"Most wild ones get eaten at that point," Dugtrio noted sadly translated by the device in the center of the room. "I take it the plan for any of the big ones the rest of us find is to do what we can then try and catch them?"

"Hit them hard enough with Steel or Dark type advantages, Fighting moves if you know any," Serperior told the teams. "Honestly it is only pure power that gives me and Gazi a chance, they have a serious type advantage over us."

"On the subject of types, I've gone over Salamence's changes and there is an oddity. She has three now," Delta 2 said from her Box. "Specifically she is now Dragon/Flying/Electric typed."

The mentioned dragon blinked in confusion. "That's possible?" she asked moving one of her tendrils in front of her body to look at it, then sent sparks down its length.

"Three types?" Jack asked with a laugh. "Smile can give pokemon an extra Ghost type, so yeah it is a thing."

"Considering that the Ghost type is strong against itself that is a quick way to give yourself a type advantage," Shawn said nodding. "If you don't have Fighting type moves it would at least clear the resistances a Goliath has to that and Dark typed attacks."

"Don't have any of those," the other trainer said clearly indicating that the tactic was a familiar one.

"Ground type would work too," Grant said tapping the floor with his clawed foot. "That's why I got Earthquake from Alpha 45's TMs."

"We also got Brick Break, although it isn't really our style so I'm hoping the Ground type moves are enough," Quagsire added nodding.

"We should be ready to deal with them," Investigator Roberts confirmed. "The physical attack teams are getting ready now, and the plan is to hit slightly after them to flush out the Porygon."

\---

Grant's team arrived in what appeared to be a steep river valley with a number of odd structures diverting the 'water' to various locations. The glowing light blue liquid was actually data transmissions for a phone system, with the digital world formed at a routing facility. It was a location that they suspected was going to be a key evacuation point for Upload, possibly even prepared for that purpose, and as a result A-0 was assigned to this target to cut off that option with the Fossil Hunter's group as backup.

The area was relatively well developed, with portable tents and quick assembling structures placed to create a solid wilderness camp. At the main outflow of the liquid was a boxy structure containing the entire remainder of the flow, and next to it was the most permanent looking of the clearly imported structures. A good sized generator was setup fairly close to this building, and cables were going from it to multiple locations including the outflow device.

"They check these systems for power use issues," A-0 said looking at what was clearly its main target. "Upload probably can switch to using power from the system in an emergency, but if we take that then we might just cut off most of their escape plans."

Tyranomon then emerged from his ball, blinking at the sight around him. "Smells like five humans," he said sounding a bit uncertain. "Can we face that many?"

Grant clacked his claws ominously. "We need to hit them hard and fast," he told the digimon. "We're short on humans so they probably won't go one on one."

"Lockdown in effect. They can still get in, and I don't know about that thing getting them out," the Porygon noted pointing at the flowing data. "But all going according to plan so far."

A shout came from the largest building, and a small swarm of Dos appeared from another building and surged at them. "That is nowhere near enough of those," Kabutops commented as Grant sent a barrage of flying stones at the shards. "I'd think they would send the big guns out first."

"I have a Porygon trying to get out, and not too well at that," A-0 then commented. "I don't think they have Stones here."

"I'm not happy that I'm the one who recognizes the faces of our foes from the briefing," Quagsire said seriously. "Those are some of the trainers we are watching out for, the ones with well trained teams."

"Elites, we have pokemon incoming," one of them shouted letting out an Exeggutor. "Find the trainer!"

"That's me strangely enough," Grant called out charging forward. "Let's take them down guys."

"Tyranomon, stick with Dugtrio. Kabutops, follow Grant," Quagsire shouted looking at their opponents as a Parasect joined the multiple headed tree. "I'll take that one," she finished pointing at a newly emerged Vileplume.

The Grass types looked unimpressed with the mix of fossils and Ground types charging forward, while the remaining two pokemon to emerge on Upload's side paled at the sight of the massive dinosaur turning to deal with them. "Hit him hard with a Wood Hammer, Exeggutor," the leader of the group said looking over the water dwelling fossil pokemon heading after him.

Grant smiled darkly as he took the hit. The tree pokemon slammed their body down on top of him only to have the Rock/Bug type clamp his jaws down in a Bug Bite attack. The Grass/Psychic pokemon cried out at the exchange's mismatch in effectiveness.

Kabutops was less confident in his own match up against the insect controlling mushroom. "Grant, is there a quick way to learn Rock moves?" he asked slashing at the massive fungus. The creatures scuttled backwards leaving a burst of powder behind that the fossil splashed with a rapid burst of water to settle the small cloud.

"Grass is weak to Ice," Quagsire reminded her teammate while blasting a poorly aimed Ice Beam at her own opponent. "That's why we learned it."

"I thought it was just in case of Dragons," Grant said swiping at the now worried looking tree with a green energy coated claw. The pokemon's trainer looked nervous after their missidentification of the large Bug pokemon, but the Exeggutor was still standing despite the hard hits. "Although I'm doing fine without," he laughed slashing again.

"Him turning into a combat maniac makes me feel a bit better about the training plans," Tyranomon said casually smashing his two pokemon into a rock wall raised by Dugtrio.

"Why do they all talk?" one of the digimon's human opponents asked sending out a second pokemon. "Absol was bad enough."

Kabutops was not much better with the unpracticed TM move, his own stuttering beam of freezing energy only lightly clipping a leg of the dead eyed bug. The stalks moved uncertainly, clearly not wanting to get too close to the sharp claws of the fossil pokemon while also limited in ranged attacks. "Grant, I think we need your claws for this one," he called out spraying water again to keep the mushroom's spores down.

\---

Jack's target was the main source of general supply raids. The attacks that went after food, office supplies, and the other day to day goods that were commonly stored digitally due to the large market for them. The sight of the apartment complex's local file server, however, revealed that it was also being used as a bunkhouse for grunts.

"Metagross, how good are you at fighting?" the assistant asked worried as he took in the digital mimicry of the physical building the system was contained within. It was clearly well used and three Upload trainers were already visible getting ready for a fight.

"Combat ability is inferior to a typical specimen of my evolution stage," the machine like pokemon said simply. "Porygon has been detected, likely present to evacuate these forces. I will contribute what I can while preventing attempts at escape."

"This isn't looking too great," Smile the Gourgeist said emerging from his pokeball to see three low level pokemon already present and two more grunts coming down the visible set of steps leading to higher floors.

Vibration responded with a blast of dragon fire at one of the increasing number of pokemon present. "I couldn't tell from the army of grunts," the Flygon complained sarcastically. They were weak enough to only need a couple of hits, but one or two hits was enough to be dangerous with this many and the sound of still more above did not help any.

Three of the Upload pokemon now present instead of hitting the invaders seemed to uncertainly target their own allies, but the others quickly rallied to focus on the Dragon present. "That's Robert's little minion," a new grunt said spotting Jack while descending the stairs with two others, bringing the total number of grunts in the fight to eight with no clear indication that those were all of them.

"Metagross, how many are there?" Jack asked nervously as his Ghost pokemon sent a wave of dark energy over two other pokemon in an attempt to thin the numbers.

"Unknown. Warning, at least one Stone class Hackware is present," Metagross said casually smacking aside a rodent attempting to get a hit in, but the machine like pokemon was clearly distracted from the fight. "I will need to dedicate more resources to the interdiction efforts to prevent these forces from leaving. Beginning containment attempts on data manipulators. I will inform you if they are still being supported."

"Right, do what you can," the trainer nervously said. "Smile, Vibration, multiple target tactics."

Smile let out a wave of sinister energy at the command, nearly striking one of the enemy trainers as well as their pokemon, who was quickly recalled. A blast of icy energy from a Water type struck Vibration hard, but the low level of the user allowed him to counter with a much stronger spray of small rocks that hit it and another pokemon.

Seeing the difference in numbers was enough to give a bit of hope to the Upload forces, who quickly began to organize themselves to shift out pokemon and use their limited stock of supplies. "Jack, I think we need to be taking turns," the Flygon said after spotting the quick assembling of basic medical supplies.

Metagross quickly translated this and proceeded to form a few clear barriers to try and section off the grunts. "Some of their forces are occupied with stopping containment procedures," the Steel/Psychic type added afterward. "I am requesting reinforcements, and will attempt to restrict their numbers."

"Please hurry," the carved pumpkin pokemon said sending another wave of energy at the more common Dark type pokemon in the growing collection of pokemon facing them.

\---

"Looks like we got lucky team," Shawn said looking at the two Goliath class Hackware moving towards their arrival location. "We found the big ones right off the bat."

"Lucky us," Youkomon said finishing his temporary evolution. "Hold them off while I lock this down."

"Gladly," Serperior replied liquefying and creating a mass of vines to entangle the two creatures. While the snake pokemon surged forward the fox digimon began tracing patterns and forming panes.

"We got them," a grunt said a good distance away in the massive mostly empty warehouse that seemed to be this digital world. He didn't sound too happy about the result.

"Where's the rest of them?" his companion asked while she watched fiery cages start to close around the Porygon and two Stones that they were next to. Reacting quickly the pair let out pokemon to smash the containment attempts while Shawn took out the Pokedex to aid Youkomon in the efforts.

"It would seem that we sprung a trap," the red eyed trainer said with a cold smile. "We can't afford to let the Porygon get away, take out the Stones."

The digimon nodded and the cages around those two detonated in blasts of flame that sent the pokemon trying to free them skidding a short distance. "Not the biggest fan of this plan," Youkomon called out moving forward to distract one of the Champion Hackware. "But I don't see a better one." He then dug into the floor to hopefully hit harder with Ground type attacks as the remaining enemy digital life forms finished breaking free from the vines.

The pair of Hackware quickly took stock of the pokemon on their side being returned, then moved as one to send waves of energy at Serperior with slashing movements. Serperior simply flowed around the blasts for him and countered with a very small spray of brightly glowing leaves that hit hard enough to stick into their targets, but not enough to slow it down at all.

The pair of red polygonal giants began moving to close with the serpent just as the ground under them surged outward, with black energy coated claws swiping along their bodies just behind the bombardment of earth. The snake pokemon took advantage of the brief interruption provided by Youkomon to quickly slash at the closer enemy, but none of the attacks seemed to be as damaging as the pair would have liked.

The two Hackware now shifted ignoring the digimon entirely to focus down on Serperior, clearly unthreatened by the nine tailed fox's attacks. They quickly drove the Grass type to move backwards out of slashing range with a series of four quick energy waves. Once the pokemon was far enough back Youkomon created a set of flaming barriers to catch the third set of attacks so his teammate could catch a moment of breath.

"The fox is the one keeping us trapped, why are they leaving him alone?" they heard one of the grunts complain at the edge of the fight, and the Goliaths turned as one to face the digimon. Youkomon skidded back to try and avoid the sudden attacks. While Serperior moved to take advantage of the shift the digimon formed a few more barriers to protect against the attacks.

One of the pair of Hackware instead scraped a claw across the ground, making a wave across the ground much like their prior form's normal attacks. This apparently even traveled under the surface as while it did stutter at the protective walls of flame the red glow returned and seared across the fox's flame covered feet. The other shattered the barriers with a pair of the airborne moves, allowing the second strike of the first to clearly move to hit the now distracted Youkomon.

This revealed that digimon in particular had found himself vulnerable to the attribute mismatch of the current battle. "Shawn, can you take over keeping this place locked down?" Youkomon asked tiredly after the particularly strong hits. "Because at this rate I'm not going to be able to keep the change up."

Serperior had been doing better with taking the hits, but the increased defensive capability of two foes supporting each other was limiting the damage done to either of them. "I can't really afford you going back to Gazi here," he complained trying a blast of Solar Beam that hit solidly but was quickly disrupted by another red energy wave from the Goliath that wasn't being hit.

"Taking hits like this is eating my energy," Youkomon said slashing with claws coated in a mix of black energy and purple flames. "And it isn't like I'm accomplishing much here. I think the evolution has made all of my moves into Data attribute attacks."

"I have the lockdown handled, and Janice knows we need backup," Shawn said calmly before firing a Solar Beam of his own that simply splashed off one of the Champion with no noticeable damage. "But since everyone has hit heavy resistance it looks like she's calling Grim for his help."

The digimon then took a combined attack from the pair that sent him skidding and slow to pick himself up. "Okay, do we have a plan B that isn't that? Because I don't want miss three heads saving my tails," he said trying to get back into the fight, but just after finishing the statement his body glowed and returned to being the much smaller and more vulnerable form of a Gazimon. "Ugh, of course it doesn't even last that long," he grumbled panting a bit while the two Goliaths turned back now that he was clearly taken out.

"Gazi, I'm not adding anything with my energy," his trainer said thoughtfully. "Worst case? We need to stay out of your way when my energy sends you feral until it runs out."

"Avoiding an angry fox monster is better than fighting alone right now," Serperior agreed now mostly on the defensive. "Also better than getting help from Grim."

"Well, bad idea is better than waiting," the digimon agreed with a dark smile.

[CONDITIONS MET]

Gazimon began to glow along with the keystone slot of the Pokedex, however unlike the now typical white glow he was covered in a deep red color with black spots. Instead of shifting to a four legged stance his body expanded into a larger slightly more humanoid form with long thin arms and thin but strong legs. Four tattered wings extended outward from his back, and his tail and claws grew longer and harsher. The glow faded to reveal a more dragon like black hide with white and red markings, along with many more belts wrapped around his tail and limbs. His hind claws were a matching black, but his hand like forelimbs ended in deep red talons clearly made for shredding. His head had shifted to a more reptilian design, with ears like a bat's wings, large sharp teeth set in a jaw that had the only hints of his old purple color, and four deep red eyes.

"What the hell?" the new dragon asked confused and angry. "Devidramon? Now I get Devidramon?"

"Less confusion over it going weird, more stomping the enemy," Serperior called out flowing in complex patterns to avoid damage. The newly evolved Devidramon turned to face the two Goliaths and proceeded to freeze them in place with a sinister glow from his four eyes as they realized he was once more a threat. "Yes! Glare is just what I needed," the snake pokemon cheered as he took advantage of the change to harshly slash the pair, while also earning an annoyed grumble from the digimon at once more having his teammates react easily to a digital ability.

"You're just lucky I know this form," Devidramon complained out loud before bursting forward to clamp onto the closer of the two Hackware. "Otherwise I probably would be going nuts right now." He then twisted his claws into the creature producing a metallic shriek and causing the other one to begin frantically attacking the evil looking digimon.

Serperior struck the other target with a harsh laugh that had the two human members of Upload moving farther back. "Do we still want them alive?" Shawn asked calmly, even if he looked a touch more tired out. Not understanding the grunts scrambled backwards in fright.

"I need to keep my eyes on them to keep them stopped," his digimon replied still sounding annoyed.

"Ah, a worse Glare then," the snake pokemon replied jokingly. "Now's the best shot, they're just one good hit away from not getting back up." Two pink and blue altered Ultra Balls flew from the trainer's unoccupied hand to hit both of the digital life forms. The enemy trainers remained shocked as the devices initiated their purpose and captured the Hackware inside.

The spheres shook once, then again, and finally a third time. "Do they even know how to get out of those?" one of the grunts asked horrified just before the two devices clicked one after another. The pair then turned to look up at the malevolent dragon, liquefied serpent, and move using human they had tried to take out.

"I think we've won this one," Serperior said sliding forward to glare at them more directly. "Where do they need us now?"

"Backup for Jack," Shawn said quickly. "Grab them to take along and let's head out."

"Uh, guys. I don't think I can transport us like this," Devidramon rumbled unhappily. "We might need some help to get there."


	34. 2-10 Executive Action

\--- Executive Action ---

In the physical world the raids were going well. The majority of Team Upload's grunts were tied up in their digital housing facility and their elite forces were attempting to hold their planned evacuation route. With both of those locations under direct attack, and with the associated Porygon tied up in trying to get out of the now compromised locations, the police forces storming the many smaller sites were easily trapping forces in areas where the best plan to escape had been via digital means.

Executive Thomas had the Porygon at the main facility open a portal to the secondary evacuation site. The rather peaceful looking naturally occurring digital world was one of their best hidden support bases, and the Executive resented the implication that the open field within was somehow a better site for technical research than the abandoned laboratory that he found to act as a main base for the organization. The sound of fighting on the lower floors made him frown at how badly it had all gone since the raids on Digital Storage Solutions.

However, the first sight he had inside of the alien world was a massive blue dragon with red wings standing next to her trainer, clearly ready for his presence. "Roberts," the Upload leader said darkly letting out his Arbok.

"Ah, Executive Thomas, you're just in time," the Investigator said seriously. "I was just about to write this target off. Salamence, lock us down."

"Gladly," the pokemon said and the Executive looked over the creature. Polygonal domes were present on her back and he reached down to let out his remaining pokemon to deal with the clearly modified dragon. Behind him the portal he had been using sparked closed and the Porygon began to beep in a clearly frightened way.

"Didn't expect the police to resort to the same kind of abominations that Anderson was making," he commented darkly letting out his Electabuzz.

"Abomination?" the dragon asked darkly. "You have all of these creatures dying for you and I'm an 'abomination'?"

"Don't get me wrong, they are useful monsters, but they aren't natural," the Executive replied grabbing a third ball. "They don't understand proper pokemon battles." This time a Victreebel emerged.

"Like five against two?" Roberts asked sending out his Growlithe while Salamence began producing a small number of Analyzers hidden from view behind her body.

"The little paper cutters they have are usually at a lot more than ten to one," Thomas countered making a slight motion to his Electric type. The large yellow furred creature released a massive burst of electricity towards the LAS hybrid.

A typical Dragon/Flying would not be weak to such an attack, but it also would not have resistance to the strike. In this case the blast simply sparked across her hide leaving little damage behind as her altered form took in a bit of the energy as was typical for an Electric type. She responded with a wide blast of Dragon Breath that hit the pure Electric type and the emerging form of the Executive's fourth pokemon, a Rhydon.

"Salamence, we're going to have to change the numbers here," the Investigator said uneasily watching the fifth well trained pokemon emerge. This one a Muk that was clearly powerful due to its massive size and strong smell.

"Do we want to try that?" she asked quietly as she stopped producing the digital drones, with ten in total.

"Dragon fire first," he answered keeping the real intent of his pokemon's question hidden under the order. Salamence chose to target the Rhydon with the blast of purple flames, who seemed surprised for the attention.

"Arbok, Rhydon, handle the mutt," Thomas ordered sharply as the flames washed over his rocky pokemon. The grey armored Ground/Rock type rumbled at the damage, a good hit but not enough to take him out on its own.

"I'd rather try the other ones," the fiery canine growled while trying to dodge so that her teammate could take them on instead. She made good on this statement by spitting a fireball at the pitcher plant pokemon.

"Salamence, shock bombs," Roberts called out. The modified pokemon took a moment to realize what her trainer meant by this order. She sent her Analyzers forward in two rough waves, with the domes leaping into the air unexpectedly at the command.

"Flying type," she mumbled watching them fly at their foes, and getting an idea as she spotted Rhydon moving to intercept what he likely thought was an Electric type move. Six of her drones detonated in harsh gales that buffeted the four pokemon at the front of the enemy formation. Two more were destroyed, one by the Victreebel and the other hit with the blast of wind. The last two settled on the forms of Rhydon and Arbok where the two had moved to attack Growlithe.

"An interesting trick, but honestly not worth it," the Executive noted looking angrily at his two suddenly frozen pokemon. "What are you waiting for?" he questioned looking uneasily at the two remaining Analyzers clamped onto the pokemon.

The two pokemon instead struck at their own side, Rhydon aiming for Electabuzz and Arbok striking at Victreebel. The targeted pokemon quickly realized the source of the issue and attempted to hit the dome shaped constructs with rapid attacks, the Electric type not even trying to tone down their attack towards the controlled Ground/Rock type. The Analyzers were quickly destroyed, but not before the Executive's team had inflicted some damage on themselves.

"Keep them occupied," the Investigator instructed, and Salamence followed the instruction by producing another set of five drones and sending them flying at the enemy group. Growlithe added a few blasts of flame to keep the enemy team from focusing on them before they could arrive. This time only one was in position to latch on, taking over the highly injured Victreebel, while two of the others at least survived long enough for their creator to detonate them, this time producing a wave of Dragon typed flames.

The LAS hybrid was then momentarily distracted by requests for aid from the other teams sent along the communication lines she was still learning to properly use. As a consequence her half given instruction to Victreebel about attacking their forces caused the creature to instead make a move to strike the Executive himself, prompting the Muk to smash the pokemon aside with a wave of toxic sludge. The human then looked at his Grass/Poison type with bland annoyance as it was broken free of control by the strong hit.

The Muk then simply resumed its position at its trainer's side, giving Salamence an idea. Following Gazimon's example she blew a thinner but wider stream of dragon fire out to conceal her body, and created two more quick waves of Analyzer drones. As the flames cleared she spotted Growlithe hitting the plant pokemon one last time with another blast of flames, clearly taking it out of the fight. She then sent the dome shaped constructs flying forward, and made a third set of just three that she attempted to hide in the existing group as it passed over her.

"Hit them hard," her trainer said looking at the large swarm. This time the drones went slightly past the group, before she carefully detonated most of them in bursts of electricity that was much more damaging to the other Analyzers than the enemies.

"A poor choice in type with that one," Thomas darkly commented watching a good portion of the attack get absorbed harmlessly by Rhydon. His team was still more injured than his enemies, but his best fighter was nearly undamaged while he still outnumbered the foes. He could see that Electabuzz had been taken over this time, but the sparking attack that the Electric type sent at Arbok also shattered the damaged dome that was controlling him.

"Muk, would you please hold your team down for me?" Salamence asked aloud, just before the toxic pokemon surged outward around not just the pokemon, but also their trainer. His mass quickly solidifying enough that they were barely able to move inside of it, but the lack of active discomfort showing he was not allowing his poisonous nature to affect his teammates. "That will do fine," she continued producing another wave of five drones and sending them to latch onto the captured team.

Only after the domes latched on did she realize she had sent one to their human trainer as well. The Upload leader and his team simply stood there waiting for instruction, making the dragon turn to her trainer in a mixture of embarrassment and horror. "Have him return them and pass their balls over," her trainer instructed sounding as uneasy with the result as she felt.

She made sure to remove her drones from each of the pokemon as she made Thomas return them one by one. Once all five were back into their pokeballs, and then after finding the Porygon's ball as well, she had the Executive pass the spheres over to her trainer before having him step a good distance away. "I don't think I want to use these like this," she told her trainer while the Investigator considered what to do next.

\---

"Grant, I've cut off incoming forces because of what you're hitting there," A-0 said over the entire system after the fossil pokemon's team had moved on to the second wave of pokemon from the elite trainers. Tyranomon and the Armaldo were quickly moving to take on whichever pokemon was the hardest target still available.

"Who the hell was that?" one of the first trainers knocked completely out of pokemon asked uneasily as she stood near the back of their group.

"Grant, Dugtrio, shake the ground," Quagsire said panting slightly looking at the three remaining enemy pokemon. The three headed pokemon did so first, causing the entire camp to shake violently with a fast followup from the Rock/Bug's stomp.

Kabutops slid back uneasily having taken enough damage to not be able to effectively avoid his teammates' attacks, with Tyranomon stumbling a bit from lack of experience with such attacks. Despite this effectively taking them out of the fight for a short time the same move had left the Upload pokemon open to followups by the Ground types and Grant himself.

"That would be our Porygon support," Quagsire replied after strongly hitting her target while turning to look at the now worried looking humans returning their pokemon. "So, since we're still up for continuing, and you don't look it, maybe it is time to surrender?"

Grant was panting himself, but easily moved to allow his claws to gleam in the strange lighting of the digital world while turning to look at the humans. "Unless some of you are up for a fight?" he asked seriously, getting a brief mist of water across his back for the threat.

"Bad bug, just because you can fight Shawn and turned pokemon yourself doesn't mean that humans are suddenly valid targets," the amphibian harshly instructed her teammate.

"Where is your trainer?" one of the other elites asked scuttling away from the pokemon.

"He was our trainer," Kabutops said pointing at the other fossil pokemon. "Then he evolved."

"Humans can evolve?" the human responded earning a laugh from the digimon present.

"That was my question," the dinosaur answered sitting down to rest.

\---

Vibration looked at the slightly injured group of humans Metagross was looking over with a wobble in the air. His vision was swimming, and as a result the few remaining active combatants were hard to target safely. "Smile, how many are left?" he asked the drooping Gourgeist briefly looking towards the stairwell.

"Too many, we might not make it through this," the Ghost/Grass type complained just before a flash appeared next to the group. Shawn and Serperior were now in the room along with a massive deadly looking dragon monster. "Or we get reinforcements just in time."

"Yeah, just in time," the Flygon managed to say before collapsing onto the floor. "I think I might have gone too far," he continued faintly. He could hear a shout from his trainer, and thought he saw Shawn charge forward with a green sword alongside the tide of snake and evil dragon. Then Smile was next to him looking really worried.

"Vibration? When did this happen?" the pumpkin asked touching a spot that hurt very badly and then wiping something away. "Oh no, we need to get him help now!" the pokemon cried out and Metagross translated quickly while aslo clearly preparing to transport them out of the world. "Oh, this is a bad idea but I don't know a better one."

There was a purple glow, and an odd sensation that was almost familiar to the Ground/Dragon type. The world had stopped spinning quite so hard, but the flash that sent them out of it and directly into a medical facility was too much. Vibration closed his eyes and groaned before losing consciousness.

\---

"Delta 2 is working on him now," Shawn said as his team made their way through the Upload main base alongside the Investigators. "She's sure he will make it, but might need to use some more advanced methods."

"We should have had more backup," Jack replied shaken. "I should have convinced Strangle to stick around."

"We weren't expecting them to have most of their people in one spot," Roberts said sympathetically. "Keeping thirty pokemon in line with just three is a bit more than can be expected."

"My sister is more than able to help him," A-0 said looking over the recently cleared building. It had been a research lab working on a nearby ruin once, but the site was abandoned after a surge of Ghost type pokemon had driven off the field teams. Now it was being cleared out by a number of police.

"How many got away?" Gazimon asked as they reached the clear location of the Hackware development lab. The room was as empty as when the raid had hit it, finding the cleared room and moving on to other targets quickly without understanding the importance at the time. Many larger machines were still present, but those were clearly too large to move quickly.

"Recovered materials show that they had just established a new development site," Jack responded latching onto the distraction from his injured pokemon. "It looks like they were in the middle of transferring supplies over when our attack hit. Any later and they might have taken this stuff there too."

"The transfers seem to have been done directly from this room," Roberts added. "I was hoping you could find the destination quickly so we could finish this before they had a chance to rebuild again."

"I take the avoidance of the question as 'we don't know'," A-0 said moving forward to inspect the room, and producing two panes to work on.

"Ugh, if we didn't need to do this so fast I would be helping," Gazimon complained. "Evolving twice takes it out of you." He then looked over the red four sided item that had formed after his change into Devidramon ended. "Not to mention I don't know if this is one I can only use with just Shawn's energy yet."

"I wouldn't mind some rest as well," Serperior agreed tiredly, his form fully solid. "Too bad they probably got away with everything to make more of those monsters."

"What is this interference?" A-0 suddenly asked confused. "They've done something to their transport system."

"What do you mean?" the digimon asked walking forward to look at the scrolling data, and freezing at the sight. "No way," he said faintly and rushed forward to get a better look. "I know that mess," he growled. "Fuck."

"Gazi, what's wrong?" Shawn asked seriously scanning for targets absentmindedly.

"I know this interference. The damn boss monkey was on our case for days about this damn interference," the rabbit monster growled bring up a pane of his own. "We are in deep fucking shit now, because this damn stuff turned out to be Datamon going rogue to trick the Digidestined into busting him out."

"Who else could do that?" Roberts asked quickly looking with worry at the digital creatures' work.

"Nobody at all, which means they have Datamon here," Gazimon informed the group throwing his pane down to shatter on the floor. "He's rebuilding the network for them, and I'm quite sure that bastard would try and hide what he's doing to make Champions. I don't know if I can get through this shit even if I evolved."

"You have come a long way since we found you," A-0 stated calmly. "We can find them again. However, that is not the real problem, is it?"

"He's an Ultimate," Gazimon confirmed nodding. "As much stronger than those Goliaths as they are the Crabs, and probably better at manipulating data than I am as Youkomon."

\---

"The big raid is about to happen," Absol told the Upload development team in that same room a couple of hours before the attacks. "We have two options for what we can do."

"Should we call Thomas here?" Bob asked uneasily looking towards the doorway.

"You misunderstand who 'we' is in this context," Anderson said easily while looking over the remaining equipment with a frown. "What are the big changes?"

"If we inform the Executive we will extract with more grunts, and save at least one Porygon for later use," the disaster pokemon said clinically. "However, Datamon is just the kind of person to rub Thomas the wrong way. If we keep them in the kind of proximity that escaping results in then at least one of them will turn on us rather quickly."

"More grunts?" Alice asked looking torn on the idea of running while letting the rest of Upload fall.

"It is a simple matter to ensure that those most willing to work with us are in the process of transferring supplies during the attack," Anderson answered. "What is the problem with not informing our supposed leader?"

"Datamon takes over," the pokemon said simply. "He loves being in charge and we will outright owe him for this. That we helped bring him back is just enough for the digimon to give that option."

"Time is always our most critical resource," Anderson said simply. "And as he told us, it is sometimes necessary to put on appearances to satisfy those in power."

\---

Vibration woke up feeling incredibly sore. Opening his eyes revealed that he was laying down in one of the medical beds of Box 201. He carefully stretched to try and chase away the aches along his body, producing a strange creeking sound that wasn't familar, but didn't sound or feel wrong.

"Vibration?" Delta 2 asked suddenly right next to the bed.

"What happened?" he mumbled with the strange creaking also invading his voice.

"You tried to fight off a small army on your own," she said without the harsh tone he had expected, which was the first sign something was very wrong. "Near the end you ran out of defensive energy, hit points if you're more familiar with that term. Then, you kept going." The words were critical, but still calm. "The Seel one of the Upload grunts had was actually one of the stronger pokemon. It also was very good at faking going down to keep itself in better condition longer. It was hitting you hard with Ice typed attacks, and the one after you ran out was particularly hard."

"How bad?" the Flygon managed to say frightened by the tone of the conversation.

"You are apparently good at staying up despite being critically wounded," she replied still lacking any harshness. "Bad enough that by the time you stopped you probably wouldn't have made it through a transport alive." She turned to look out of the room, then shook her head at whoever was outside of it. "Smile used Trick-or-Treat on you first, making you into a Ghost type. Ghosts care a bit less about how stable their physical bodies are."

"So, you were able to fix me?" he asked testing his limbs without really moving them, and finding the sensations he got back wrong somehow he couldn't quite place.

"You were barely alive when you got here," she continued sadly. "As a result I needed to look for more advanced methods of keeping you alive. Shawn and Serperior a while back tried to make up for something stupid they did by buying me some medicine. Crystal Syrup is what it is called, and it is prized for its ability to heal Grass type pokemon. There is apparently a new way of making it that let them find some in the market."

"You made me into a Grass type?" the injured pokemon asked lifting his head to look down at his body.

"If you give a dose to a pokemon that isn't a Grass type it converts their body into a plant and gives them the type," she corrected sadly as he saw some of the changes. She created a mirrored surface for him to see the rest. His tail had changed to a large gnarled root, with the plates at the end transformed into a dense dirt filled clump of smaller roots. His legs were similarly altered to large root structures with hints of dirt on them. His main body had changed to wood with thick bark, making him appear much like a small mobile tree. In the mirror he could see his wings had become two massive palm like leaves, with his antenna changed to thinner leaves as well. His eyes were now coated in thick but clear globs of amber, greatly resembling their former glassy appearance.

"I'm a tree," he said disbelievingly. "You had to make me into a tree?"

"The dose that transforms a pokemon can and does provide some degree of healing," Delta 2 said still calm. "You went from running out of blood and energy to running out of sap and energy, which is mostly better. I still gave you a second dose to heal the rest."

"So, what does that mean? Am I just a tree forever now?" Vibration asked looking over his now wooden claws. He thought he could almost make out someone quietly arguing just outside of the room they had moved him into.

"The transformation lasts for one week," she replied. "Until then your secondary type will be replaced by Grass."

"We had hoped that it would replace the Ghost type, but that's not how things worked out," Smile then said while others yelled at him for entering the room. "Waiting until after Trick-or-Treat ended wasn't an option."

"Wait, how am I still a Ghost?" the new tree creature asked confused. "That doesn't last that long usually."

"Well that kinda relates to why we actually have some Crystal Syrup," the Chansey shaped pokemon said sounding a bit uneasy. "A Professor Larch over in Kanto was doing some research with his daughter on the stuff and found out that if you were transformed into a different type one way, and then again another way, you would have to turn back from the second type change before you can turn back from the first. So you still have a third type until you turn back, then the move should run out after that." She looked over a a small rack of vials with two empty spaces. "One way to make it easier to make more is somehow related to having a pokemon be a Grass type. So transforming someone with one dose, then using something else to make that change last longer, means it is faster to make more of it."

The Flygon took in that statement and turned to look at his teammate. "How bad was it really?" he asked seriously.

"Strangle is here, Jack called her after we found out you were going to be a Grass type for a while to help with that," the other plant pokemon said blankly. This was not commented on as Vibration was now frozen in complete shock over the statement.

"They are both rather upset with how things turned out," Delta 2 tried to comfort him. "She rushed here using standard transport methods."

"He called Strangle?" Vibration asked faintly. "He actually called someone?" His amber orbs widened for a moment. "I almost died," he realized horrified.

"When being made into a Ghost is needed to keep you from dying it is arguable if 'almost' is the right word," the female Serperior said darkly as she slid into the room. She had rather clearly been crying. "I guess that I didn't really think about what you being in over your heads actually meant."

"We panicked over them having super powered monsters and went after them without really preparing properly," Jack said following her. "We had other pokemon and trainers we could have tried to bring in, and the other three groups were able to deal with their targets well enough."

"Thirty pokemon ranging from the teens to the 30s in level is more dangerous than the groups hit by the other teams," Delta 2 cut in. "Grant's team had a lot of strong pokemon to handle a smaller number of enemies, Salamence had her foes fighting each other more than her, and Shawn's team only made it out in good enough shape to rescue you because of a new evolution we could not have predicted." She walked over to the trainer looking angry. "Thirty pokemon verses three means they could use the pile of medical supplies they had to get those that were down back up again more easily. I have a number of those pokemon here in conditions almost as bad as him because field treatments can have long term consequences when used that heavily, but they still were able to fight more like 50 pokemon in practice."

"Are you staying now?" Vibration asked Strangle instead of acknowledging the argument.

"Yeah, out of practice or not you apparently need the help," she agreed simply.


	35. 2-11 Datamon's Assistant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of two chapters today to make up for missing one yesterday.  
> Sorry about that, got caught up with writing a chapter.

\--- Datamon's Assistant ---

Anderson looked over the remaining free members of Team Upload in the rocky world they had been in the process of taking over. Absol was sitting on top of his bed, the last thing that the pokemon-Hackware hybrid had carried along during their escape. Alice and Bob were with the mass of Hackware floating and standing at the edge of the group. Most of those digital life forms that existed were here during the raid, as they had convinced the Executive that the process of making more advanced versions required considerable access to them. Eight grunts stood nervously next to the small series of supply tents that their group had been moving into the digital world during the attack.

Nearby the still wounded Datamon, missing one of his four legs and with only the most basic components for one arm, watched from the prefabricated building they had already set up as a lab. Large black cables and wires extended outward from the structure across the entire world, the start of a revived version of the 'Dark Network' they had found the digimon within. This construct was apparently preventing the world from being properly targeted for transport by anyone who was not authorized.

"I see that some of you are here despite some rather spirited attempts to locate this sub-world," the digimon said grandly walking forward to meet them all. "I take it things are not going well in the main location to cause them to find this one even to that extent? Some defector I assume."

"An all out attack actually," the highest ranking grunt complained. "I think we might be all that's left. Maybe they missed one of the supply bases, but they'd find the comm system the main base had before we can reform to get anyone out of them, and I don't know how good this thing would be at keeping us hidden if they see a transport from here."

"Sadly it seems that we are all that remains of Team Upload," Anderson added somberly. "We have ran before, but these are the worst losses yet. I fear we will need to finish the evolution for the Stone class before we can resume operations at full capacity."

"You were not able to secure any of your data manipulators?" Datamon asked a touch harshly. "Very well then. I will be happy to provide instructions on how we can proceed from here while hidden by the Dark Network, and should have the evolution you request done soon enough."

\---

Vibration was looking at Strangle and Smile nervously, making her a bit nervous as well. "We're all Grass types, and with one move I can make us all Ghost types too," the Gourgeist complained looking at the ominous wooden body of his teammate. The Flygon was intricately carved to look just like his natural form, producing a haunting effect worthy of his temporary third type.

Strangle was limited on places she found safe to actually to look. Her brothers were a mess to start with, and seeing Slasher with blue eyes was far more unnerving than her Flygon having been converted into a carving. However, the other options were not much better. The Salamence was in theory the best option, but the faceted domes along her back were so clearly unnatural that the relatively minor change compared to the rest was not her preference to see.

"Most of my team is water related," the Armaldo said getting ready for a trip to one of the other worlds to prepare for future conflicts. "Adapting to that kind of thing is a lot easier with teammates who already know their stuff." The clear attempt at sympathetic advice was hindered by the fact that the former trainer had apparently needed no help with being a pokemon to date. "Dugtrio and Tyranomon aren't fond of water, but I don't think they would be interested in that kind of change," he then admitted.

The fossil pokemon actually looked like a normal pokemon who wasn't visibly changed from normal, but he also was taking his transformation the best out of all of them. Salamence was a touch uncertain with some aspects of her new abilities, Vibration kept turning slightly at the creaking sounds his body made, and her brothers, despite their ease with each other, still were not desiring to truly be the other's species. "So, serious question. How likely is it that I end up transformed somehow?" she asked the room managing to keep her tone level and calm.

"Rather high at this point," Slasher told the group unusually serious. "This is basically one big corruption incident, and that always has the risk of that stuff." Her biological brother looked at her with an actual hint of worry. "The Troubleshooter team saying that Shawn was going to end up with something permanent was the kind of joke where every word of it is true."

"Strangle?" Jack asked then, making it clear that she had not been able to keep her cool. "Are you okay?"

Embarrassed at failing to live up to her mother's impressive impassive appearance the snake pokemon buried her face in her leafy arms. "I have a front row seat to a collection of pokemon that have physical alterations I did not think was possible to have a couple of months ago," she confessed. "You called, my team is hurt, and I want to help..."

"But you were in over your head with mundane problems, let alone our mess," Quagsire finishes for her. The pokemon's tone was sympathetic, but also a hint exasperated. "How out of shape are you?"

"Somewhere around level 50, if I had slipped any lower than that mom would have started me up again," the Serperior replied unhappily. "I take it that isn't enough?"

"We have just about every pokemon Upload had before," Investigator Roberts informed her looking a hint uneasy with the situation himself. "Which means all they have to work with is a slowly growing army of League level combat creatures that fight at around the same level as your brother."

"The one who prefers being a snake," Shawn joked looking over to Janice, who is simply inspecting Strangle like she is somehow the strangest thing in the room. "Are we good to go see Alpha 45 about her attribute work?"

\---

Tyranomon looked over Box 45 nervously. He had not been in the technical machine research and development Box long before, the timing had not worked out quite right for him to get a full explanation of the place while his teammates prepared for the Goliath Hackware. The large relatively simple world was not visibly strange, but what he had heard about what was done in the world worried him.

"I am still not sure I understand the concept of moves," the dinosaur admitted to the group. Grant's entire team, including the LAS, was along to provide advice to him regarding any possible changes the Administrator could offer him, and Shawn's team was also present to go over Gazimon's new form.

"That is mostly due to a difference in your energy manipulation capabilities," Alpha 45 said calmly looking over the larger digimon. "Shawn is probably one of the few people that can even try to explain the difference between being able to move your energy like a pokemon and not having the context to do so."

"Not really, I've always been able to move it some and it just got easier after a while," the technically human trainer responded casually. "I can't really imagine a world where you just had a few set attacks you could do, and you were stuck with just them."

Tyranomon contemplated this response for a moment while the Porygon continued her inspection of his code. "There are some ways to change what you can do," he slowly admitted. "Ways that might matter quite a bit now that we are facing a corrupted Datamon."

"Corrupted?" Alpha 45 asked seriously. "What does that mean in this context?"

"Before Etemon forced him to work on the damn monkey's Dark Network he was a force for good. A digimon dedicated to repairing computer systems and keeping them in good condition," the dinosaur answered. "Whatever the singing bastard did to him must be bad for Gazimon to be so convinced that he turned to evil."

"Hah! Yeah, I bet that bastard loved giving everyone that impression," Gazimon laughed harshly at the statement. "If you think Etemon had any hope of building that thing himself you're mad. The two of them were thick as thieves before the big fight. You wouldn't believe how many digimon were beaten up by the monkey one day, and going to get cybernetics from the machine the next."

"Your are sure that actually happened?" Tyranomon asked equally harshly after a moment. "You saw it yourself?"

"I was still just a Pagumon back when they were working together, but I know for a fact that the real question about their fight is who betrayed who to start it," the rabbit like monster said keeping the same tone while rubbing just behind one of his ears. "Datamon is as much of an arrogant asshole as Etemon, only he's smarter too. So because he knows more about stuff than you do he just assumes he should be in charge of you."

"One of those," Alpha 45 interjected darkly. "Suddenly the risk is readily apparent. The kind of genius that leads to entire cities or even regions facing the prospect of destruction because they needed to prove just how much better they are."

"Even the not actually that smart ones can be a threat," Grant added clicking his claws with an old annoyance. "They know how to do stuff that the average trainer thinks is just great. Move tutoring, temporary physical enhancements, or saying that they have even better things than that. All you need to do is some simple thing that helps them out a lot more than the actual benefit of what they do for you."

"Yeah, the kind of guy who helps you out because his own project needs you to do something for it to work," Gazimon agreed.

\---

Datamon looked over the personnel files for the pitiful remains of his new forces with annoyance. The human world was strangely advanced to allow so many into the digital sub areas, or rather this human world. He knew that the unusual not-digimon were not native to the world of the Digidestined. The creation of Hackware was a possibly valuable resource for his revenge, but the technological presence needed to make them might indicate a risk to any attempts to return to his own digital world safely.

"Human allies with access to rather advanced technology," he said to himself looking over the setup they had managed to transfer prior to the massive raid. "If only they were a bit more obedient," the machine digimon muttered quietly, then paused at the thought. "I wonder, can I recover that data?" A quick check of both his own data and the fragment of the Dark Network had him laughing quietly. "Ah, still mostly intact. Well my dear it seems that you do have a use to me after all," he said to the data smiling widely.

He immediately set to work on this new project, humming to himself as he quickly assembled a folding table from the supplies present to work on. A short time after, however, he was frowning at the results. "Damage is not extensive, but some of it is in critical locations," he said tracing a finger down a display. Turning to look at the various machines in the makeshift lab he considered his options. "Digimon data is of course available, but really is rather limited in quantity. Perhaps there is a solution in the Hackware code."

\---

She woke up confused, her mind fuzzy and her body feeling completely off. She tried to think of the last thing that happened to her, and was left with confusing results. She could remember being in the pyramid, taken down below by MASTER DATAMON. He had restrained her on a table FOR HIS PURPOSES, with Biyomon clamped to the wall next to her and an empty table just like the one she was on across the room. MASTER DATAMON then explained HIS GOAL for why she was there while the table scanned her.

But after the scanning beam went over her head she remembered being on the far table, while a girl that looked just like her argued with MASTER DATAMON for a reason that she COULDN'T QUITE MAKE SENSE OF. Then she was released and her MASTER had her walk up to stand next to him, prepared to take her Digivice and Crest.

The clone of Sora Takenouchi ran this series of events through her mind a couple of times before she realized what it meant. That she was the copy, and not the original. She was made by MASTER DATAMON to achieve HIS GOAL.

"What is the problem now?" she heard her MASTER say angrily, making her sit up and turn to respond to his question. The machine digimon looked far worse for wear than last she saw him, but that did not explain how he had become so much larger than before. He now was somewhat taller than her rather than being notably shorter, about the same difference now as between his body and Biyomon's. "I did not even have a scan of the bird's physical data, how could you have possibly taken it on?"

The clone blinked in confusion at the statement, the sensation of moving in response to a feeling seeming odd itself. "What do you mean Master?" she asked, the sound of her voice wrong in some way she could not quite process. "I am a HackBiyomon sti-" she cut off and found herself paling at the statement, the knowledge that she was no longer a human. Looking over her body revealed the same pink feathers of the original Sora's partner, but where Biyomon had blue markings at the tips of her head and tail feathers HackBiyomon had red ones. Her beak and claws were also strangely crystal like, with polygonal faces making them up instead of smooth curves.

"It seems that there were side effects of using the Hackware data in your recreation," MASTER DATAMON said sounding very disappointed. "Increased independence included." The harsh statement reminded the clone that she had never acted on her own will since she was made. Her MASTER then began to go over her body with a sensor array, a large frown on his face making her WISH TO AID HIM.

"Well now," a gruff voice suddenly cut in from an entryway. "Who is this?" a white furred creature asked padding into the room on claws much like her own, meeting her eyes with a strange expression. "Experiments with reviving some digimon properly this time?"

"Absolmon, it is good to see you are doing well," her MASTER clearly lied. "This is a project I have been working towards, restoring an assistant to help with my work. I had thought your own kind's data would prove beneficial to her."

"I'm afraid that it is just 'Absol', Datamon," the creature corrected strongly. "I may be partially digital, but I am still a pokemon foremost," he continued confusing the clone. There was apparently some distinction there, and she still did not know what had damaged her MASTER or how he had gotten new allies.

"Ah, Datamon," another new voice said, and this time HackBiyomon was floored to see an adult human enter the lab. "Oh, who is this now?" the man asked spotting her.

"This is my restored assistant, modified from her prior form. She is now apparently a HackBiyomon due to the addition of your own work," her MASTER replied with the same complementary tone he had used when speaking with Izzy.

"A pleasure to meet you, Hack-Biyo-mon. I am Anderson, leader of Team Upload's Hackware development," the human greeted her bowing slightly. "I was just about to tell your superior how I had a breakthrough on our project to evolve our Stone class Hackware. Although if he has been working on getting your body working again from the recovered parts of the Dark Network I can easily guess he has not yet had time to fully get you up to speed on our situation." The human turned to MASTER DATAMON. "I'm sure he would be happy to have Absol here fill you in while we discuss the details of the next step in our plans."

"A breakthrough?" her MASTER asked sounding shaken by the concept. "Yes, of course I'd be more than happy to look things over with you on your own results," he quickly collected himself. "HackBiyomon, go ahead and learn about our current status from Absolmon."

\---

"Maybe we should focus on why we're here right now," Quagsire suggested. "What the guy is like is important, but being able to fight better against the Hackware Champions is our biggest issue while we try and find this hole they hid in."

"I'm afraid my stock of good news isn't very full," Alpha 45 told her. "Tyranomon is barely, just barely, compatible with a couple of Fire typed TMs, and even then it is fairly likely those are for things he can already basically do."

"I'm personally not too fond of being modified by digital gods," the dinosaur said uneasily. "Even if they are responsible for my return to the living."

"That isn't even the digital god stuff," Gazimon commented. "Heck, I can do more than those TM things now."

"I try to not think about how they made you into a digital god," Tyranomon dryly replied. "It terrifies me in a way I do not believe any of you really comprehend."

"More to his point," the local Administrator refocused the conversation away from her status as a digital Legendary pokemon equivalent. "Technical Machines are something that normally does not require the kind of modifications we've been resorting to." She motioned for them to follow her the rest of the way to the third development building. "Sadly, the current goal for working against Upload is closer to his concerns. Energy manipulation can't cover the differences between digital life form attributes."

"So we can't just shift moves between them on our own then?" Serperior asked interested. "Have you at least figured out how to give us moves that are for the different kinds?"

"Ugh, more good news bad news," she replied as they reached the doorway. "Good news, I have a solid way of giving pokemon ways of using multiple moves each set to a different attribute." The inside was revealed to contain the three former recording devices, Zoroark, Charizard, and two of the warehouse Guardian units all apparently working on the project. "The problem comes with digital monsters. Which we now suspect all of the digital life forms we have encountered so far are."

Tyranomon simply nodded at the declaration while most of the others looked at her clearly wanting clarification. "Primitive ones, like back when the human data networks were new and simple," the digital dinosaur said simply. "Which your networks are for the most part. Young and only now becoming connected."

"Yeah, my siblings who are looking into the differences figure that is the case," Alpha 45 confirmed. "But the problem they show us is that their attacks are only able to be the same attribute that they are."

"What about Gazi?" Shawn asked sounding casual but looking at the Guardians seriously.

"That is the big issue here. His normal body is a pokemon at this point, and can take advantage of these specialized moves. However, his method of temporary evolution converts him back into a full digimon," the Administrator replied. "The cube changes everything to Data attribute for the duration, and the tetrahedron to Viral."

"Which means that we have either the equivalent of a type disadvantage or one less data manipulator," Shawn noted. "That's not going to be great for when they have more of the things."

"Actually, I might have an option for that one," Alpha 45 said more happily. "While I was doing a bit of work on getting you and Grant shifting between human and pokemon I ended up wondering about trying to get around the issue by changing the digital monster's attribute with a similar method."

"You've made some progress then? Delta 2 says I need to get that paperwork done, and she'd rather have me able to become human," Grant said, mostly complaining about the idea of being his original species again.

"Uh, no not really. I don't even have a working method of Shawn yet, and he is practically able to do it by accident," she confessed unsure if that news was good or bad for the fossil pokemon. "But I might have a way for Gazimon's evolutions to switch between each other."

"That would be nice to let me keep up with data manipulation when A-0 isn't available," the digimon agreed nodding. "But how does it work?"

"Well, I'm hoping to get a good scan of your Viral Tetrahedron to compare with the data I have on the Data Cube," she replied motioning to the work area of the building. "I think I might have seen some stuff related to that in their code, stuff that resembles what I've been finding for options on the human change project."

\---

"Well, here we have our little emergency base of operations," Absol said to the interesting benefit to the most recent disaster he had crashed into. The bird monster was dull eyed in a way that usually indicated some sort of mind control, but the bit of the conversation he had caught them in told him a lot about the real situation. "I know it isn't much to look at, but we did just have to escape a raid by the police." The words were selected carefully, preventing misunderstandings that hurt their long term situation much more than it helped short term.

"There are humans here," she replied confused, but still speaking quite dully. "How did they reach the digital world?" She seemed torn between curiosity and blindly following Datamon's last instruction.

"You know about humans, but don't know a way to get into a digital world? We're down to using Stones to transfer people back and forth at this point," the pokemon replied. "I guess explaining all of the different kinds of Hackware is part of the tour." He barked a laugh at the expression of confusion that briefly appeared on her face before fading back to a blank look. "How about we move along and get something to eat," he suggested allowing her to return to the robotic actions without pushing further for a moment.

Alice was sitting on a folding picnic table along with two grunts near the main stack of supplies. The three of them were clearly going over the recently completed inventory while eating what looked like fairly standard travel rations. "Absol, who is your friend?" she asked spotting them and reaching over for two more packages. "I'm Alice, one of our two Hackware Technicians."

"She's Datamon's assistant apparently, Hack-Biyo-mon," he gladly replied nodding at the bird digimon. "She has just been revived as far as I can tell."

"Really?" one of the grunts asked sounding a bit relieved. "I guess he's not that bad if he's finally getting the rest of them put back together."

Alice instead actually looked at the supposed assistant, then met the pokemon's gaze seriously. "We have some basic supplies ready, but this place hasn't been setup for habitation yet. So we're stuck with these for now," she said handing the pair of rations over.

"HackBiyomon," the bird monster corrected taking the package and slowly working to open it looking somewhat confused. "Why aren't you Absolmon?" she then asked looking at the bland bar of food, making the other Hackware hybrid smile at the clear verbal attack.

"Because we don't need to tell everyone that pocket monsters are monsters?" he said as a joke. "More to the point I'm not originally digital, so file extensions don't really exist for me normally."

"File extension?" the digimon asked frowning over the bland bar's taste. What followed surprisingly enough was an explanation not of why there was a difference, but of what exactly a file extension was. Absol was not alone in being baffled how a computer generated monster could not know such a thing. The conversation showed a bit of the person under the mind control, but also was clearly going on longer than normal for her because that control was still having HackBiyomon treat him as a tour guide.

"Well, that was an interesting topic," the grunt who had spoken before said to end the lesson. "But I need to get started on building this place up for those of us that prefer better food."

"How many pokemon do we have left?" Absol asked before the trio of humans left.

"You, a Golbat, a Weezing, and my Murkrow," he replied unhappily. "The same three that got hit back when we ran into snake-eyes trying to hit DSS."

"The rest of our grunts were working mainly with Stones for support of transportation," Alice added nodding to the others as they started walking off. "Any idea if we're anywhere near an evolution to them yet? I'm not looking forward to trying to raid real world storage facilities with just Hackware, even if we make more Goliaths."

"Anderson is talking that over with Datamon now," the Dark/Ghost hybrid informed his teammate before pointing over at a red polygonal mass near what looked like a power line. "I should move on to showing Biyo who we're talking about."

"HackBiyomon," the digimon corrected again, sounding more sure about it as her own name. Absol grinned at the shifting of the paths, the small change making her last longer than otherwise would be the case.

"Well that's a plus," the tech replied with a nod. "Your Worms are also getting a bit restless, probably because we haven't lost as many of those as anything else so far."

"Worms?" the bird monster asks in several kinds of confusion.

"Let's go see them," Absol said looking over at the clustering of red polygonal creatures. "I think I see Bob over there, he's the other Hackware Technician."

The mentioned human was indeed over with the Hackware, apparently having sorted them out for a headcount. "Absol, good to see you. Just got the numbers down for survivors," he said to the approaching pair. "We've got sixteen or seventeen swarms of Dos, twelve Vir trios that used to be twenty, about six Crabs, eight Stones, and you still have eleven Worms left. Well, we also have the first Goliath, but you know how Anderson is about actually putting the first of any kind in harms way, so we might as well say we don't have him in practice."

"Are you also lowering the other groups by one with that logic?" the pokemon-Hackware hybrid asked with a laugh.

"Actually yes, I'm not sure where the developer is hiding the rest of those, but they aren't with these guys," the tech replied looking over the bird monster. "Who is this?"

"HackBiyomon," the digimon cut in before Absol could say it differently, then remained quiet while passing her dull eyes over the large group of creatures.

"She's Datamon's newly revived assistant," Absol said once again. "I'm giving her a rundown on what the situation is and a tour of the camp. Are you up for explaining Hackware to her?"

"Sure, he hasn't stuck around for a full explanation yet so it should help with working out what kinds of questions he will have," Bob agreed. "Have you worked with him for a long time?"

"I have just been declared Master Datamon's assistant," the digimon said with dull exactness, as if she was trying to say something else. The tech shot Absol a look much like Alice had before from this response.

"Okay then, I guess you're starting over with us then," Bob said shifting the path slightly with the statement. Absol wasn't sure why those disasters disappeared from that statement, but most of the ones gone were after something had removed HackBiyomon somehow. "Alright guys, let's get examples to the front," the tech instructed the swarm of Hackware, taking a moment to point to one of each kind.

"First we have Dos." The single two dimensional clawed creature spun around, creating an interesting effect as the volume-less parts moved to be face on to anyone watching. "They were first made to make up for our lack of pokemon after Team Rocket fell. They aren't intelligent enough to do much on their own, and are mostly useful for taking hits for something else and moving stuff around." The example made a sound outside of human hearing, not even to the level of basic communication but resonating with the rest of its swarm to make something that was almost acknowledgement. "They don't last long outside of swarms because of how primitive they are."

"After a while of using them one swarm we had suddenly merged together to evolve," Bob continued pointing to the trio of three dimensional versions of the same creature. "We called those Vir, and they are basically more capable in every way, although they still need to have three individuals to function properly." The trio pinged out a simplistic greeting in the same unheard sounds. "When they started trying to mimic what our Porygon were doing, direct data manipulation and ranged attacks, we realized that they could be used to take over some functions from them."

"Getting them to evolve again needed actual work. Anderson started by focusing on improving their combat abilities." The short and stocky four legged Hackware clacked its front legs on the ground at this. "Crabs were the result, but to get their harder armor and stronger attacks they had to give up most of their flight capacity and nearly all of their data manipulation abilities."

"Worms were the next attempt at data manipulation focus," Absol said moving forward to scratch at one of the tube shaped Hackware right next to one of its two dimensional claws. "The idea was that they would enter systems secretly with improved stealth and the ability to phase through anything. However, a lot of the more generalized data manipulation skills became more difficult, and the physical characteristics were also weakened."

"So we tried again for something to do what our Porygon were doing for us, Stones," Bob resumed pointing at the floating block of red polygons. "They have a lot more data manipulation ability than the others, but they aren't good at combat or infiltration." The Stone let out a brief and simplistic greeting.

"Finally we have out new Goliath, they are our first evolution from the specialized Hackware. Datamon helped with getting Crabs to evolve into them," Bob said pointing to the massive digital life form.

"Greeting. Kin," the creature said in that same unheard sound. Its speech was blunt and simple, but much clearer in intent than the other kinds had accomplished.

"We've lost most of the four we had, captured rather than killed," Absol said looking over the creature. "Although I don't know how long we can count on that being the case."

\---

"There is a bit of a concern," Investigator Roberts said shortly after the two groups with digimon left to see Alpha 45. "My superiors have had time to review the fights against the Goliaths." The timing of the statement was not missed. "My new orders are to limit the recovery of digital life forms to unique specimen and any hybrids." His words were controlled, and it was clear he at least partially disagreed. "With the unstated but implied order to simply destroy any additional Champion stage Hackware we encounter."

"Why exactly has this changed?" A-0 asked bluntly. "I know we didn't have good ability to keep them contained before, but I thought that was just a matter of getting those police make pokeballs to modify."

"Police pokeballs have issues with storing targets long term," Jack told the remaining members of the Troubleshooter team. "There is a reason everyone else went away from the old style they are still made in."

"Wait, they are recapture style?" Janice asked with some surprise. "Ugh, no wonder they aren't going to work for this."

"Recapture style?" Metagross asked looking over to where a couple were sitting on a desk.

"Back before we had a good material to link a pokemon's energy to their ball we just used the energy gathering and containment parts along with a harder to open latch," the Lead informed her pokemon. "The upside is that it is a lot easier to make the ball tougher, and that means it catches pokemon better. However, it needs the pokemon to be re-caught every time you want to recover them."

"Which is a problem for digital world based storage, as there is no simple return feature to such balls," A-0 said. "We've actually ran into a few problems with that kind being given to new trainers by older ones. I take it that re-use is another part of why the police likes them?"

"The difficulty in keeping an increasing number of them contained is part of the problem. The main thing they are concerned with is that these are League level combatants without the need to train to that level," he looked sadly towards Strangle. "And who do not decrease in power below that level if left untrained for a while. Which is a strategy we have somewhat depended on with reforming pokemon in the past."


	36. 2-12 Shrine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second of two chapters today to make up for missing one yesterday.  
> Sorry about that, got caught up with writing a chapter.

\--- Shrine ---

"We need a supply raid," Alice bluntly told to the assembled group of humans, pokemon, and digimon. "We have the basics to start ourselves off with, but we need to find some power generation equipment to get Hackware production going again."

"I do not understand the concern regarding power, can we not simply tap into the energy sources of the digital world?" Datamon asked bluntly.

"While it is not currently known what method naturally occurring digital worlds use to produce their power, the amount they produce is much more easily quantified," Anderson replied. "We have found enough nodes in this world for four dual purpose recharging and generation systems for Hackware. That is enough to support our current forces, but to be blunt, the snake eyed trainer's team alone could destroy our entire current Hackware force."

"The other issue is that I'm quite sure that tracking the power use of artificial digital worlds is how DSS found all of our old bases," Absol added. "If we try and set something up in one of them that draws too much power they will hit us hard." The Upload forces clearly understood this was an analysis of future disasters, but Datamon seemed unconvinced and HackBiyomon simply watched motionlessly.

"So we require more mundane resources to produce the required energy?" Datamon asked annoyed. "Repeated raids for fuel and atmospheric controls for such things are a major complication to future operations."

"We aren't about to go for some simple combustion generators," Alice said shaking her head. "We aren't on a camping trip here. We want field power cores, like research labs use out in the wilds."

"What is a power core?" HackBiyomon asked looking confused.

"Something I did not think humans could make," Datamon said thoughtfully. "You are not familiar with the topic of generators that use things other than fossil fuels?" he asked his new assistant.

"I do not think we had anything other than solar panels and windmills for that sort of thing. I guess nuclear reactors too," the bird digimon responded thinking hard. "What do you mean exactly?"

"Wait, if you know about them why wouldn't she have them?" one of the grunts asked.

"HackBiyomon has experienced an unusual transformation as a result of my attempts to restore her," Datamon said quietly, upset with giving up the information. "She is a duplicate of a human that once traveled to my own world." This statement caused the pink avian to grow slightly more dull eyed and still, while Absol frowned at the clarification. "As a result she has firsthand knowledge of our own human world."

"But you are familiar with the general idea? We have a stock of elemental stones and I think I know where to get a core that will run off a full set," Alice said pointing to a box set aside from one of the storage piles.

"So far we have not found a use for them in evolving Hackware," Anderson conceded. "I suppose powering the growth of new units would be a better use of them given that reality. My guess is you have found a new mining site extracting them?"

"A company that does prospecting for stones," she clarified. "They have a system they use to keep replacement parts in stock for their field teams using remote access terminals. I left it off the the lists of targets just in case because of that bit of a hole in their security, and it has everything we need to start over."

Datamon reacted to this statement by actually looking over the site around him carefully, noting the well stacked crates of general purpose supplies and construction materials for light prefabricated buildings. "You were already planning on what to do if you needed to evacuate again," he said after a moment.

"Digital world conversion capacity is the only thing we did not bring along," Anderson replied to that statement. "With the new Shrine class Stone evolution we should be fine with that as well."

"So we are going to make a digital world at their storage facility to attack from?" HackBiyomon asked confused.

"No, we would attack their digital storage system," Bob corrected.

"If they are using a digital world to store these materials why did you need the more advanced data manipulation digimon?" Datamon asked frowning.

"Digital storage as in turning stuff into energy and keeping it in a computer," one of the grunts contributed. "There doesn't need to be any place you actually can go to put stuff there."

Both of the digimon looked a touch disbelieving at this. "I think I can see now how you have found your way into digital worlds on your own now," Datamon replied sounding torn. "And also why the only digimon you are finding are so very primitive despite that. Your digital worlds are still young and minimally connected, like my own might have been in those first years before true digimon existed."

\---

"Grant, glad to finally catch up with you," the researcher said when the fossil hunter answered the phone, the image showing the inside of Deepstone Labs behind him. "Really, Grant? You've already revived them?"

"Uh, not really, Walt," the former human replied scratching at his neck plates. "It is kinda a lot more complicated than that."

"Please tell me you didn't revive the pokemon and then immediately get yourself transformed into one somehow," his old coworker sighed. "It makes the jokes about the fossil awkward."

"Actually I evolved from holding onto the fossil in a teleportation thing," the Armaldo admitted nervously. "So I can't really revive it now, because it is a part of me."

"Well, that's even more awkward," Walt replied looking rather uneasy himself. "We might have, possibly, taken to calling that fossil 'Grant' after you predicted those things about where it was found."

"Oh, that reminds me, were you able to find the odd colored shell I put off to the side from the main pile?" Grant asked in a tone his teammates were now associating with him getting lost in the past.

"Alright, yes we did in fact revive a shiny pokemon from the specific fossil you somehow knew about," the researcher said slowly. "Although it is only stranger to hear that now that you look the part of the creature that had collected it."

"Did he phrase it just like that before too?" Quagsire asked more to confirm than anything while Kabutops whispered the word 'shell' thoughtfully.

"Like he was the one who had eaten the other pokemon back when the fossil originally lived?" Walt asked clearly not seeing who was speaking. "Yeah, he did, and it was strange then too. Honestly that's the main reason we started calling the thing 'Grant'."

"Um, the medical professional that has gone over my change might have suggested I am a reincarnation of an Armaldo," the fossil pokemon trainer admitted. "Possibly even of the specific one that you found the fossil of?"

"Okay, that answers a whole lot of questions we had about you," the researcher said after a long moment. "For one why you kept talking about what different fossils tasted like."

"Did you manage to bring any of those plants back yet?" Grant asked looking somewhat hopeful. "Those little red almost-berries went nice with Kabuto."

"With what?" Kabutops asked harshly walking over to poke the other fossil pokemon.

"Uh, Walt, we didn't get Kabutops' fossil from my shell pile, did we?" the Armaldo nervously asked.

"No, he is from actual Kabutops remains recovered at a different dig entirely," Walt answered sounding rather exasperated.

"Right, break it up you two," Quagsire said walking between the two Rock typed pokemon and clearly into the view of the video. "Is there any news on what's going on at the lab we should know?"

"Oh, Quagsire. Things are going fine, but we have had to find a new field team," the researcher said nodding. "One that fits in our budget."

"I have two problems with what you just said," the amphibian pokemon responded. "One is that getting us back apparently costs more than just replacing us, but the other is far more important. Why is my showing up able to talk a thing that calms you down?" she harshly asked not waiting for a reply before rubbing her face.

"Generally you were able to get your trainer to focus on projects," the human replied reluctantly. "Although I guess whatever translator you are using is letting you interact with people a bit better."

"Yeah, this place is a lot stranger than that," she responded sighing. "The three of us can actually speak human now."

"So, does that mean you are taking over as the trainer?" Walt asked prompting the Water/Ground type to end the call.

\---

"And here we have the new evolution," MASTER DATAMON said to the group leading them to the new Hackware. The creature's main body was a massive floating block. It was split in half at the middle where it was the widest, the eight flat panels making up the majority of its surface tapering up and down from that to another split at its top and bottom with only half the width of it's center. Short pyramids capped the ends of its body by taking this smaller length down to a point. At each of the four corners along its central ridge were black circular eyes like those present on a Goliath. Floating beside and behind the main body were two smaller blocks of material, visually distinct from Stones but close in shape to the lesser Hackware it had evolved from.

"Vocal processing available," it said as a greeting. "Operations within acceptable parameters." Apparently this one could be understood by the humans as they reacted to this statement with some unease. HackBiyomon tried to keep her own discomfort with the resulting creature off her face, and a small sad part of her hoped that the lifeless look in her eyes helped with that.

"Good to hear," the tech woman, Alice, said to it. She was among the few who did not look uneasy and in fact looked quite happy with the result. "Are you capable of digital world conversion already, or do we need to work that out still?"

"Digital incarnation system is currently at 68.64% operational status. Estimated completion time 48 hours," the Shrine said without inflection.

"Perhaps I will be able to speed the process up a bit," MASTER DATAMON suggested. The bird digimon was WORRIED FOR him, as the way the developer, Mr. Anderson, had so casually created something that ONLY her MASTER had the skill to make was TROUBLING.

"The aid would be appreciated," Anderson said easily. "Although I had thought you would be busy with making sure your assistant was in top form for you going forward." The man turned to look at her calmly, with a face she could not read. "I suppose I could give her a checkup to see about her Hackware modifications while you worked on that to keep things moving nicely," he suggested.

Worried HackBiyomon turned to her MASTER to see his reaction. She felt a small sense of something like betrayal from his considering look, BUT NOT A VERY LARGE FEELING. "Yes, that should be fine. Perhaps you will have a better understanding of the physical transformation she has undergone," he responded with what she saw as a sinister smile DIRECTED AT THE HUMAN. "HackBiyomon, go along with him while I assist this digimon."

She OBEYED the order CALMLY, following the human over to the site he had setup outside to do his work while her MASTER took the Hackware to his lab building. "Don't look so down, Miss HackBiyomon," Anderson said making her flinch at how he had seen her emotion. "He is quite a brilliant person, and I am more than happy for the assistance with the Shrine. After all, another checking your work always results in better quality than doing everything alone."

"That is true," she admitted slowly while walking over to the smaller set of electronic devices that had arrived during the raid by the police. "What will you be doing to me?" she asked, more for her own fears than any of her MASTER's ORDERS.

"A simple scan to start off," he replied setting up the device. "Datamon lacks a type of any kind, unlike my own Hackware, and I want to make sure that combining your kind of digimon with those hasn't produced an unstable situation." A series of clicking noises then came from the machines and he motioned for her to step to the side slightly. She remained quiet as she did so rather than ask any of the questions that statement brought to mind, uncertain if she even wanted to know what the he had meant.

"Let's see, Viral attribute which is common enough with the creatures I have seen that I don't actually know the difference it makes," he confessed jokingly. "Looks like a solid Flying type, which is interesting as none of our current Hackware demonstrate that one." The bird digimon blinked at the confirmation that she had one of these 'types'. "The Dark type does show up in them, and you have most of that one," he continued more seriously. "That might require some stabilization."

"Stabilization?" HackBiyomon had to ask worried by the tone.

"So that you properly have the type, rather than this unusual almost type," he clarified. "The Flying type does not appear alone as far as I am aware, so it is potentially risky for you to not have this other type stable." He began to tap on the keyboard present causing the machines to shift slightly. "It should be a quick fix."

He then looked at her expectantly, and it took the clone a moment to realize that he was actually asking for her permission. Since she was made she could not really recall anyone doing that before. Uneasy with the implications, and still not up for a real explanation, she simply nodded and allowed him to continue. A red glow then appeared over her body, tickling at the crystal like parts of it in a way that almost felt like she could manipulate the strange sensation. Then there was a flash that removed the glow, and came with a strange lightening of her thoughts.

"What was that?" she wondered aloud, the words coming even easier than before. "Wait, did you change something else too?" she asked harshly realizing that MASTER DATAMON's control programs weren't functioning as actively. Simply that she could realize they were there was a massive change that had her CONCERNED FOR HER OBEDIENCE.

"Of course not," he replied sounding what she felt was too calm for what had to be a blatant lie. "I simply cleaned up the areas that related to your Dark typing." He met her eyes thoughtfully, like Absol had done when she was first met the strange creature. "At most there is some shifting of sensibilities to account for some features of that type. Absol should be able to tell you more about those concerns."

\---

"Grant, we have an Officer Jenny here regarding your former humanity," A-0 informed the fossil pokemon shortly before the police woman arrived. "Officer, he's the Armaldo," the Porygon said to her nodding at him.

"You do mean he's the Armaldo's trainer right?" she asked hopefully while looking over the collected group, with the members of Grant's team who were able to fit inside of the Troubleshooter Lab clustering together around him.

"Uh, maybe?" the fossil fossil hunter said uncertainly. "I mean, Quagsire was registered only as my pokemon when I handed her the ball, and I don't know if it is enough to be the one holding it to count as being the trainer. I think you need the paperwork for that first."

"Well, there goes the hope that this was a prank," Jenny responded with a sigh. "So you evolved and need a new trainer card? Can I see your old one." The Rock/Bug pokemon nodded and handed over the small piece of plastic that had an image of his previous form proudly displayed on its face. The officer looked at the card, then the Armaldo, then back at the card again. "Just to be clear here, you are going with having evolved into a pokemon from being a human?"

"We have a video recording of it happening," Serperior pitched in, drawing the police woman's attention to him and his trainer. "Digital transfer held item evolution to be clear."

"How many of the pokemon here can talk?" she asked looking around the rather crowded room.

"I think we're down to me and four of the five Investigator pokemon that can't," Dugtrio replied, their voice translated by the machine in the center of the room. "We also have someone who isn't human, but can't speak pokemon."

"This is going to be worse than the Rayquaza's trainer who flew so high into the clouds he turned into a bird," the Officer mumbled getting out a number of forms. "Let's see this video so I can confirm you are who you claim to be." This was a trivial task, although Quagsire groaned as it was allowed to continue to his capture. "Alright, that is a hassle for the paperwork."

"Dare I even ask why?" the amphibian pokemon questioned tiredly.

Officer Jenny looked at the latest talking pokemon. "One of the better examples I have of a trainer that is a pokemon, one who also has talking pokemon on their team, was a pair of twin Zorua," she admitted. "More accurately twin Zorua that wanted to be each other's trainers." Quagsire groaned again rubbing her face. "Which means that one of the actual example sets of paperwork I have here covers that possibility, and because he gave you his ball so obviously in that video you probably do count here."

"I take it you need a copy for records on this one?" Janice asked seriously.

"Yes, at least that much of the footage," the Officer told her, then seemed to really notice the presence of Investigator Roberts. "Even if it is part of an active investigation, we should be able to keep any critical information safe."

"What happens if the entire team ends up being trainers?" Dugtrio asked, getting a glare from his Water typed teammates. "Hey, Quagsire is already used to being the leader, and you're probably going to be one later anyway, Kabutops."

"Given the Zorua were both starting their journey it isn't technically an issue, although you have a bit of a mess to work out when using each other in regulated tournaments," Officer Jenny replied a hint uneasily. "However, our big issue is that your trainer clearly wanted to be captured by someone else. Which means I need to at least look into her becoming a trainer for him as a thing to do." She shuffled a bit nervously. "How is Quagsire as a leader compared to Grant?"

"She's kinda the one we've been listening to more than him for a while now," Kabutops uneasily said deliberately not looking at the Water/Ground type.

"Pretty good at it I'd say," Grant simply added without much care. "She's already helped me adapt to fighting now really fast."

"My sister's actual reason for calling you here was to deal with making sure turning into a pokemon doesn't suddenly make Grant no longer legally count as a person," A-0 cut in with a hint of annoyance.

"Honestly that is something that will have to be done case by case," the Officer replied bluntly. "I can update his trainer card regardless, but most places that would have had an issue with this will probably still be touchy about things even with that. Not that there are many that I know of where being a pokemon that can talk isn't enough to be treated as a person."

"Okay, now I'm thinking this is just the only thing Delta 2 found to help with the paperwork issue," Gazimon said shaking his head.

\---

"Initializing conversion process," the Shrine said from the transport restriction pad he had created inside of his lab to help prevent their apparent foes from finding them using their exit points. Anderson's work was far more complete than Datamon had expected from some random human, and his new 'assistant' was even looking far more stable after whatever the man had done. It was grating to finally find someone who could keep up with him only after having lost everything that made it matter.

The machine digimon replayed that last thought three times while the conversion process went on in a desperate attempt to find the memories that led to that feeling. This was interrupted by the creature actually succeeding to change the mundane computer system they had it interface with into a brand new digital world. "It actually worked," he said in amazement. "You are capable of artificially generating entire digital worlds." From the nervous fluffing of HackBiyomon's feathers the hint of fear he was feeling might have crept into his voice.

"You didn't believe us? Our biggest problem right now is DSS has hundreds of artificial digital worlds they have been maintaining," Bob commented. "They are used to fighting stuff like Hackware, at least as far as that Serperior is concerned."

"No time to chat, Stones with me, Worms follow up, grunts get ready to strip the place," Alice cut in. "We don't know how fast DSS will react and we need those power generators. If it looks like it can make power grab it and send it. Shrine, keep the pad clear on this end." Three of the humans quickly moved to assist her along with a mix of the specified Hackware.

Well aware of the need for haste in these situations Datamon started preparing the Dark Network to cover the theft. "Give me a moment to get the connection secured," he told the assembled group as they moved to start transportation. As soon as he was done they left in a burst of red light.

Not long after the first piece of machinery appeared in a similar burst. He was slightly uneasy with the fact that it indeed was a power core rather than the more mundane generators humans should have, but it was now blatantly clear that this was not the human world he was familiar with at all. The machine in question seemed to be made to take elementally charged crystals and extract energy from them, a method that the machine digimon had seen in his own digital world before which worked best when using opposing elements at the same time. The Shrine quickly levitated the device to the side, where the remaining members of Upload got to work moving it outside for temporary storage while more resources arrived.

"So, Datamon, why do digital monsters say their file extensions?" the white furred menace questioned absentmindedly. "It seems a bit redundant to me."

"Perhaps if you had scanned a human before-" he began to reply heatedly while scanning Bob, only to freeze up for a moment at the results.

"I'm afraid I do not understand your confusion," Anderson supplied for once looking uncertain. "All but a very small number of conscious beings are monsters, so differentiating between things that are and are not monsters is a rare case. In our world the most common distinction is between 'pocket monsters' who can be contained in energy form easily, and other monsters that cannot. Humans typically fall into the second category."

"Humans from my world aren't monsters," HackBiyomon said with a great deal of confusion, which hopefully drew attention away from Datamon's own uncertainty with regards to this revelation.

"No my dear, they are not," he admitted, considering that aspect. "Which might go some way to explaining why your body changed shape, if a Biyomon is the monster form of your human self. Unfortunately I do not have the needed information to properly describe or specify what those humans are." Her failure of shape was now clearly a change in data that he had mistakenly thought the locals would be able to identify. However, with their humans being monsters themselves it became clear how using their own data to attempt to revive her instead changed her into a monster as well.

The two digimon were left to think about that reality as four more large machines and a couple of crates of supplies were transferred over. After the fifth generator arrived the Dark Network node that Datamon had created as part of his preparations for the transfers reported that the target digital world had been locked down for transport. "We have a problem," he stated just before the entire team sent through emerged onto the pad still carrying some smaller items.

"Mission successful," Alice said nodding as the group moved off the pad. "As long as this works to keep them from tracing the connection we are good."

"It is more than capable of preventing that," Datamon harshly replied to mask his worry over the data manipulation that was occurring at the target. He quietly connected to the node to scan for their foes while the others accepted his pronouncement and got to work moving the stolen generators. He was able to scan one team moving over to the node consisting of some oddly primitively shaped digimon that was maintaining the transport lockdown, a maybe-human monster, a blob made of plant matter, and the oddest one of them all, one of Etemon's Gazimon.

"What do you think about that?" the blob asked before the Gazimon raised his claw to stop the discussion before it started.

"No talking while this thing is still running," the digimon said and then like the brute it was slashed through the connection. Datamon could only frown at the loss of possible information, but the mission had been a success.

\---

"Are you sure we won't need that?" Shawn asked as the thick cable leading from the large black box to nowhere dissolved. Roberts and Jack were off cataloging the losses and state of the digital world, while their team dealt with the digital security issue it presented, and Quagsire's team got their new trainer cards.

"We weren't sure if Upload was looking with their chargers when we got rid of them. I know Datamon is at best recording everything these see," Gazimon replied looking over at the device. "At worst he's still able to watch us. A-0, can you get anything out of it?"

The Porygon floated over and opened a pane, the pink square dulling to a grey color as it connected to the Dark Network node. "Very carefully, but it still looks like the same interference," it said unhappily as the digimon moved over to join the effort.

The rabbit like monster opened a pair of his own panes, which remained their typical black color after connection with no apparent issue. "Wow, he just restarted everything. Didn't even bother changing the access codes," the digimon said with a bit of a laugh. "I still have basic admin access, that might come in handy as long as he doesn't realize it until it is too late."

"So we get maybe a couple uses out of it?" Serperior asked moving over to see A-0's work while solidifying again.

"Depends on how arrogant he is and if he pays enough attention to what I'm doing. Like I said, I've already had to deal with this kind of interference, and I had this access back then too," Gazimon complained. "See, before the connection was lost it had this mess for the location data. The reference points are the wrong length and this bit here looks more like the kind of weird space warp the Administrators do all the time than an actual layout of the specified area." He then froze for a moment at his own words while the others looked at what he had specified.

"What's wrong Gazi?" Shawn asked his teammate after a moment, concerned by how he had stopped talking.

"We had little log books and reference guides to translate this stuff," the digimon said wide eyed. "Last time I saw these I wouldn't know where to begin with explaining what the information actually meant without one of those."

"You have been a good student as far as this kind of thing is concerned from my perspective," A-0 said trying to work out the problem with that change.

"Yeah, I guess so. I just didn't think I'd gotten so used to this kind of stuff I was that much better," Gazimon sighed, then looked thoughtful. "Wait, that might work."

"What is 'that'?" Serperior asked with a wide smile.

"Datamon is definitely going to try and reconnect with this if we leave it here," the digimon explained matching the sinister expression. "I've had to hide search histories before to keep my skin, I think with A-0's help and my Youkomon form I might be able to scrub most of what we do to this and make it look like I did a bad job."

"And we can hide a trace program of some kind inside the 'failed' attempt to clear the data," A-0 realized getting an excited nod from the rabbit monster.

"Exactly, if I can get some of our fragment of the Network up and running I can try and trace them using it," Gazimon said rapidly. "We'd probably still need multiple nodes to get it to work, but as long as I can keep the fragment I restart somewhere we can contain it shouldn't be too much of a risk on our end. Not like we're the ones trying to hide where we are."


	37. 2-13 Network History

\--- Network History ---

"It was a fast raid," Investigator Roberts started. "They grabbed only the easiest to transport power generators and only a minimum of supplies to run them. High security areas were ignored along with anything that would have needed to be disassembled."

"One notable thing we haven't recovered from the other locations is a rather large quantity of elemental stones," Jack added with Strangle sitting curled around him. "If they had those on hand to help with evolution development then it would explain why they didn't go after more of the stored supplies in favor of additional generators."

"The big problem is that they were able to get out after we locked down normal travel using the Dark Network," Gazimon added. "Which means that we can't trap the Champions anymore, and with how long getting them into a state to capture takes that makes our new orders regarding them a lot easier to follow," he continued with only a hint of disappointment.

"Just fighting them off isn't an option?" Strangle asked looking to her brother's team rather than at Roberts. "Or cutting the cable?"

"Power generators as a target means they are looking to make more Hackware, and given how many they got they want to do it fast," Serperior answered his sister. "From what we recovered of their notes we are looking at just weeks for them to replace their Rookies. The crate of stones they took can run most of those for at least a month, let alone whatever they had beforehand. They have time to get enough forces to guard their way out."

"So we might have enough time for me to turn back before we need to fight again?" Vibration asked sounding a bit relieved. "Not to say the Grass type is bad or anything," he quickly said remembering how many plant pokemon were present.

"Being back to your proper type is nice," Grant said nodding, earning a sigh from his trainer as Quagsire seemed to seriously consider returning him.

"As long as nothing has gone wrong with it you should be back to normal before they risk another attack," A-0 replied from one of the terminals setup for research purposes. It was still totally focused on the data recovered from the node and working out how to setup a secure site for their own attempt at reviving part of the Dark Network. "Sadly we are now waiting on them hitting more sites to track them down. Gazimon's trace hasn't been found yet, and they have reconnected with that location."

"I'll need to get our fragment of the Dark Network working again before I can figure out how many sites we need, but it is going to be at least three," the rabbit digimon continued. "Are the owners of the last target able to get their stuff put elsewhere while we let the node stay there?" he asked the investigators.

"They are clearing the entire system out actively," Janice answered instead. "We have a Shipper working with them to send teams in to look over some of the stuff that is in there." She turned to the Investigator. "Apparently at least one of the machines that was stolen didn't even exist before the raid occurred, and about a quarter of the remaining power generators are also new creations from the conversion process."

"The Upload Porygon are under tight security right now because of that kind of thing," Roberts acknowledged. "My superiors are actually worried about other groups attempting to steal them for that ability to try and use it to produce new equipment without considering the digital life forms made at the same time. Luckily the latest target only has passive defenses for the most part, only a couple of simple security creatures were made and they seem friendly enough."

"Creating new digital worlds out of existing computer systems is risky," Shawn agreed. "The electronics factory Gazi first evolved inside was proof of that. If any corrupted digital life forms manage to reproduce the Stone's ability to travel between digital worlds, or worse out into the physical world, we might end up with a much bigger problem on our hands."

"Shawn's being serious," Strangle said a touch faintly, worrying her team. "Do you have any recordings of these 'Champion' creatures being fought?" she then asked.

"Recordings of the Goliath battles are available," Metagross informed her. The machine like pokemon was still uneasily shuffling around the location next to Janice that they had previously preferred attempting to fit comfortably despite their larger size and the new status of their limbs as feet. "Other examples are more limited in availability. Machine creature from referenced location is on a recording, but prior DSS event is not available."

"We also have my evolutions and Tyranomon available," Gazimon added with a smirk. "Although I don't think he's really in the mood to have a fight with me either way."

\---

"HackBiyomon," Datamon called out from the middle of looking over the various reference materials that Upload had provided for him to learn about the pokemon world. Hearing her name the bird digimon moved for the first time all day, looking up and over at the machine. "There are gaps in these records and terminology that is not clearly explained. I suspect these are related to concepts so basic to the locals that they do not know that we would need them explained to us."

"Like how the 'mon' part of digimon names is the file extension?" HackBiyomon asked dully. "I was not aware of that about the digimon world before I spoke with them."

"Hmm, yes. That is a good example of our current problem. I am-" He paused thoughtfully for a moment. "Content with your understanding of the issue. I want you to go and speak with them, learn about their world and how it works. Since your continued existence is expected now that they are aware of you it should be a good task for you while I inspect the more advanced materials. I will provide my current list of topics to get you started." He walked over to a printer and quickly collected a short stack of paper before motioning for her to join him.

She uneasily attempted to flap over, careful to not go too high as this was her first attempt at any kind of flight while also trying to not produce much wind. The other digimon looked at her progress a touch uncertainly, as it appeared to him that she made a bit too little wind for a mere Rookie that was not used to her new form. "Won't carrying this around with me look odd, Master?" she asked causing him to frown. She had a point, but the increased independence from before they were in this world was still an issue for him.

"The alternative is to simply insert the knowledge into your mind, but I have other projects planned for you that doing so might interfere with," Datamon bluntly informed her. "Simply tell them what it is, a set of questions I sent you to ask while I was busy. If you are going to be my assistant you might as well preform the tasks associated with that title."

"Yes Master," she responded and then walked out of the building carrying the paperwork. "I will get your answers."

"Check with Anderson and the female technician about their data manipulation technologies as well. Find out what sensor systems they have been using to supplement the Stone Hackware," he added dismissing her. He then moved aside to bring up a wire frame of the new Shrine Hackware. "Far too intelligent. There must be some sort of trick to it." The words of the second sentence felt familiar but no memories came from them, which as always put the digimon in a bad mood.

\---

Strangle surged out of the way of the massive fireball just barely in time to avoid a solid hit. Tyranomon followed up a moment later with a tail swipe that she countered with a tangle of quickly grown vines. "The worst part is he is way too passive for a battler," Jack said shaking his head and trying to figure out if there was anything he could do to help his starter.

"Makes sense considering he doesn't want to be one," Quagsire said after giving Grant a short moment to respond instead. "And unlike me, he is actually able to avoid being a thing he doesn't want to be."

"It definitely shows why the law has decided these 'Champions' aren't easy to contain," the Serperior added sending a burst of leaves to scratch at the dinosaur's hide. Kabutops translated from the sidelines for the few people present who could not understand pokemon, including her opponent.

"If you are up for speaking during the fight can we just say you win yet?" Tyranomon complained tearing his tail free.

"I'm two more near misses or one solid hit from losing," she bluntly informed him. "You are slow and have trouble with committing to attacks, but you give and take hits that would take the vast majority of pokemon out of a fight." Seeing he was genuine about wanting to stop she began moving back over to her trainer.

"Which is the main argument for destroying any Hackware we encounter," Roberts said shaking his head. "Seeing the issue in action is unnerving. You are quite clearly not well trained, but can still fight at a very high level."

"If he doesn't want to fight, and isn't really getting much out of it, I'm not going to make him focus on training," Grant responded sharply.

"Not in charge anymore," his amphibian trainer complained. "Although the big thing I'm working with the two of you on right now is not going for the kill. Having enemies we are trying to kill isn't helping with that one." She glared at the Investigator folding her forelimbs over each other. "A former slave soldier and a fossil from before humans were around aren't good at that it turns out."

"I was mostly joking about fighting the humans," the Armaldo argued quietly. "I just got a bit caught up in my first big fight."

"Maybe I should have fought that fossil instead," Strangle noted looking at the former human with some unease.

"We have determined that when Grant is fighting he reverts mentally back into his past life," the LAS said floating up to inspect the scar on Tyranomon's back. "A time when his typical response to something he could defeat was to use it as a food source." She then dipped her tendrils unhappily. "Repairs to Tyranomon have been mostly completed, level equivalent is now holding steady at approximately 65."

"That's out of one hundred right?" the digimon asked reaching back to scratch at the location where the Dark Network had been connected to him.

"Yeah, but you rarely see any pokemon over 80," Jack told him. "The only reason to be that battle ready is if you are trying to stop Legendary pokemon or fighting against League Champions."

"That is an odd coincidence," Tyranomon noted about the terminology. "I'm somewhat weaker than before my revival still, probably truly crippled by this." His claws scraped across the injury again for emphasis. "So where I am now is around the bottom of the range for Champion digimon, and it sounds like where I used to be was closer to that area."

"It is actually really hard to keep at a level that high," the Grass typed serpent told him, frowning at how long being translated was taking. "You need to spend a lot of your time keeping in shape and practice battling against other pokemon that powerful. My brother is about as good as you can get while doing other stuff too."

"Scanning for level is mostly just checking available energy, right?" Salamence asked the LAS while looking slightly cross eyed at Tyranomon.

"Negative, physical makeup and condition of the individual are also important variables," the original Legendary Analysis System corrected. "A pokemon with large quantities of energy, but a physical form that was not well experienced with using it, will burn through that energy with a speed and lack of results similar to a pokemon with less energy but a more conditioned body. A higher level pokemon of the same species could have the exact same energy total, but with a body that is in a better condition to use that energy more effectively." She pointed at Strangle with a tendril. "Our two Serperior provide a good example. Her energy levels are not that much lesser than her brother's, but her conditioning is notably worse. As a result she is spending more energy taking blows that he would evade and forcing moves to act with more energy than he would require."

"Well, how am I supposed to scan for a pokemon's level then?" the dragon asked with a huff. "Every species is different, how would I know how each one works? Just go find a guide book and look it up each time?" she finished with sarcasm, earning a dark look from the digital life form.

"Sending data file now," the LAS droned dully. Salamence nodded in acknowledgement and then got a far off look on her face while the information was transferred.

"Yikes! This thing is huge," the hybrid yelped after a moment. "What is it, an entire database?"

"That is the typical way that a scanner system determines level. It is why Pokedex units have full information listings even when the labs only require more specific information," the LAS said harshly. "And you should have known how big that file was before attempting to receive it. You cannot simply download anything that is available, or you might end up even more corrupted than you are."

\---

The list was barely started and HackBiyomon's head was already spinning from the reactions. "You have animals that aren't monsters?" one of the 'trainers' asks while his bird that looked like it was wearing a witch's hat looked at her curiously from his shoulder.

"Are there monsters that aren't animals?" she asked uncertain how the classifications fit inside of each other. Her MASTER had made it sound a lot simpler than this, but there were so many small things that were off that it was hard to figure out if the topic on the list was completed.

"Well, the ones that are plants and such of course," Absol said looking at her just as confused as she was. "And the ones that are rocks, or gasses, or other things besides animals." She could only stare as the humans nodded thoughtfully at the idea of rocks and gas being living creatures. The casual way they simply accepted something that was only true in the digital world from her own experience unnerved the transformed clone greatly. The only positive was that she had barely felt the harshness of her MASTER's control while working on this DIRECT ORDER.

"What kinds of monsters do you have in your world?" another trainer asked confused. "I can't really tell what you even mean by having creatures that aren't monsters, so you have to know what makes them different, right?"

"Um." Put on the spot she stumbled considering how to answer. "Monsters are creatures with special powers that can do things regular animals can't, but they're only stories. The only real monsters I can remember are digimon," she answered after a moment frowning as she attempted to remember the stories Sora had been told growing up. There seemed to be gaps where she knew that there had been more knowledge, but she couldn't recall it, and the difference was harsh. She could almost feel holes where the memories should be.

"Monsters are only stories?" was Alice's questioning response. "I can barely even image what it is like for people who run a bakery without a Fire type to help with baking, and I know there are some of those."

HackBiyomon blinked at that, distracted from the investigation of her mind. "I am still learning the types, but I am guessing that means they can make the fire themselves. No, we don't have actual fire breathing creatures at all," she said shaking her head. "It seems like keeping one of those would be tougher than just getting a puppy."

This caused every last one of the humans and monsters present to stare at her like she had spoken pure gibberish. "Are there puppies that aren't Fire types?" one of the trainers asked another quietly. "I think overseas there are a couple of places with Normal typed dogs," was the equally quiet response. "Maybe that is what she means." The whispered conversation continued for a moment while she tried to wrap her head around how you could even be surprised that a puppy couldn't breathe fire.

"Alright then, if you are still having issues with types then maybe this will help," Bob cut in walking up to the group holding a small red electronic device of some kind. "I found that old Pokedex we used before we got the custom field gear working."

"That old thing made it here?" Alice asked looking between the rectangular device and the small computer she constantly carried. "I was sure Anderson had already taken it apart for the sensor array."

"Yeah, but it is one of the real old ones. I think we could get some better sensors from our new generators than what's in this thing," the other tech responded walking over to the bird digimon and holding it out to her. The sight of the electronic being held out to her made her think of the reason she was made, that moment when Tai had arrived and saved the original. The moment just before Datamon would have handed her Sora's Digivice and Crest.

Reverently she took the Pokedex, the machine was larger than the Digivice had been but her mind was still stuck comparing the two. The instant after it was fully in her hand the device glowed brightly, and the shape shifted into a smaller form. The glow then vanished revealing a much smaller device that could still flip open, but must have had a smaller screen and fewer buttons than before. A thin red chain now extended around it, attached at the middle of its top section. There was some fundamental difference she could feel between it and the memories she had of Sora's Digivice, but she still found herself clutching it like a lifeline.

"Huh, don't see that every day," Bob said looking interested, but not confused by the result. "I guess you were supposed to have it then." This drug HackBiyomon out of her thoughts to once more stare incredulously at the so called humans of this world.

"Okay, now I'm a bit worried. That is chosen one stuff there," the trainer with the crow said shifting uneasily. "You aren't a copy of a chosen one are you?"

"I guess I am," she responded dully not believing that the truth was the first explanation they had arrived at for the item's transformation. "She had something that this reminded me of, it showed that she was one." She fiddled with the device, causing it to display an image of the crow and small text she could read clearly with far too much information on the other bird.

\---

Gazimon looked between the bipedal mushroom/lizard arguing her side of the latest mundane issue with Serperior, and the black and gold bug who insisted on speaking with Shawn thinking he wasn't also a Grass type. From what he could tell the two female pokemon were both interested in the mushroom infested insect he was tasked with getting a straight answer out of, and had been causing an issue with the Administrator from how hard they were fighting for him. "Right, so are you the bug or the fungus?" the digimon bluntly asked the Parasect.

The dead eyes of the insect looked him over for a moment, then a claw jerked to motion him further away from the Breloom and Ninjask. "My subspecies of Paras is rather short lived compared to others," he began moving a bit wobbly but growing more steady as they went. "Our bodies do not last as long as others, dying when other Paras would be rather young. So we take advantage of the nature of our fungal fate." The pokemon nearly overbalanced stopping, once more showing an incomplete control over the body.

"What I'm getting from this 'my' and 'our' stuff is that you are still the bug," the rabbit monster cut in trying to get him to get to the point. He was still nervous regarding the apparent nature of this species of pokemon.

"We specifically cultivate our own mushrooms to ensure they are blank of thought and idea when their energies align with our own," the Parasect continued nodding. "That way when they assimilate our minds and memories there is no other mind within them. Leaving just us in another form."

"So Parasect aren't just Paras taken over by the shrooms?" Gazimon asked eying the still twitchy movements of the bug.

"My subspecies is typically not, others can be. I have an uncle who misjudged his mushrooms, and as a consequence was not the same pokemon after his own evolution," the mushroom pokemon replied jokingly. "My family actually likes the new him better than the old."

Rubbing his face with a claw Gazimon considered how the answer affected the situation. "You're both then, bug and mushroom. Why not just tell the two of them?" he asked harshly.

"I tell the Breloom that I am a Bug type, and the Ninjask I am a Grass type, because I do not care for the presence of either of them," the apparent instigator of this whole affair calmly replied. "If they are arguing with one another I am typically able to get some peace from the two of them."

"And just bluntly telling them you are not interested doesn't work?" the digimon asked dryly.

"I have explained that their arguments are preferable to their presence multiple times," Parasect replied just as Shawn let out a groan they could clearly hear from where they were standing, and proceeded to loudly explain that same chain of logic to the other Bug type pokemon. The Grass type could clearly hear the trainer much better than Gazimon could, as she was also looking rather embarrassed as the human detailed the meaning of at least two attempts to tell the pair that the Bug/Grass type was not in any way interested.

A blocky cat like pink Porygon floated over looking quite angry, causing the three local pokemon to flinch badly. "What did Shawn just say?" Charlie 40 asked sounding much like the angry cat it resembled. "Have the three of you been filling my Box with spores and dust because you two were too dense to realize that the red jerk does not actually like you? Did you also miss how he doesn't really like talking with anyone? How he tends to walk away in the middle of conversations that don't interest him?"

"I thought Mew were supposed to be playful little kittens," Serperior joked while the Breloom tried to hide behind the serpent.

"Most Mew don't have to deal with the random pokemon a Lab lets their sponsored trainers catch," the Porygon shot back while lashing its tail angrily. "Right, we are done with this problem. Stay away from each other on your own, or I will make it so you three cannot even find each other. I'll deal with the hassle of keeping up that kind of spacial distortion if it stops these spore storms."

"How much were you contributing to those 'storms'?" Gazimon quietly asked the male mushroom/bug.

"My own spores cannot harm me under normal conditions, so I use a small cloud of them to protect myself," Parasect replied evasively.

"Ya know, I had just started thinking I would like things getting back to normal soon," the digimon complained quietly. "But now I remember that normal for us is still really weird."

\---

He had been mistaken, Datamon reflected looking over the small array of parts sitting on the small table. About more than just one thing, and that simply made him more upset over the reality of it. He shook for a moment just considering it as he resisted the temptation to smash the incomplete device he was now working on.

The first thing was the intelligence of those he was now working with, both in quantity and quality. The brief search he had done so far of their remaining records was enlightening to this fact. Detailed documents and databases of various monsters, methods of evolution, strength enhancement procedures, and even a bare bones report from an old sister group's successful attempt at creating a clone of what sounded like an Ultimate. One such document dedicated entirely to sensor array designs was open on a small portable monitor set next to his work area. A mundane example of this collection of information, but still possessing details he would have killed to get back in his own world.

This wealth of knowledge had revealed the second mistake he had made. The locals, being well versed in methods of evolution, possessed examples of the kinds of change the Digidestined were able to cause in their partners. Examples that were clearly known to use the energy of the human to produce a temporary evolution in their partner pokemon, with a number of specially tuned items to draw and transfer that energy. With the details given here it became clear that the power source he had detected inside of the Digivice he briefly possessed was simply to produce this transfer, and perhaps to amplify the power to an extent. The Crests in turn were based on amplifying the trait present the most in the given human to produce a more potent effect using a similar amount of energy.

So his entire plan to clone the girl had be built on a false foundation, he reflected comparing the results of two of his attempts using slightly different parts. However, the other notes on this 'mega evolution' possibly explained why his new assistant had been able to so accurately change into a Biyomon. A mega evolution that was done between 'trainer' and 'pokemon' who were not close and of like mind would result in a berserker rage, exactly like the SkullGreymon evolution. That was now obviously the result of the Crest being given the wrong balance of energy, still able to produce the change but not able to do so safely.

The simplest solution Datamon could think of to avoid such an outcome was to make sure that the two creatures involved had the exact same energy signature. The Digidestined digimon were younger than the children, thus it seemed safe to assume that they were simply digimon clones themselves to allow their energies to match. HackBiyomon would then still be a perfectly intact clone of the human girl, it was just the case that a digimon version of the girl was a Biyomon.

Now that she was also related to the Hackware units his clone might in theory be able to provide those creatures with the energy to temporarily evolve given a recreation of a Digivice. He considered the four beginnings of an attempt to do just that before him. None of the units were solidly connected in order to allow for quick and clean disassembly if they did not work out. Two were made before he had considered looking for local equivalents, and two after finding a variety of documents on medical devices to restore energy to the local monsters.

Which was what finally revealed the third, and most important, mistake he had made. He had assumed that this was a world of humans like where the Digidestined were from, only with access to monsters and higher technology. Document after document regarding the combat potential of various devices, substances, and techniques pointed to a far more combative place. Most were records of perfectly ordinary researchers that were on hand in search of even more exotic methods with greater benefits. One particularly worrying one detailed the local practice of holding a regional tournament to determine who would join the law enforcing bodies of the world. The 'League' was apparently one of the major powers across the world, not quite fitting as a government but still able to make rules that were wide reaching.

Collecting the best of the two newer attempts he began walking out to find HackBiyomon. With luck the device would be a solid start and she would have gotten more down to earth information on these battle mad humans. Looking out over the rocky landscape he could spot the crystal like masses of Hackware clustered around the new generator systems in a large clearing just beyond the base, the small prefabricated buildings still being assembled to act as a more permanent option than the small tents dotting the landscape, and nearby was most of the Upload personnel speaking with his assistant.

"The thing about the Normal type is that it is what a lot of the general purpose moves are, because it is the most basic way of using your energy. However, that also means that it is actually pretty rare for it to appear with a second type," one of them was saying as the machine digimon approached.

"Well, there are a lot of bird pokemon that are Normal/Flying mixes," Alice clarified. "But that is more a way of showing how it is unheard of for Flying to appear on its own then a real case of Normal being seen mixed with something else. It is the most basic energy, and just about any pokemon who typically uses another kind of energy has that other type instead, even if they mainly learn Normal type moves."

The bird digimon then fiddled with a small red device, one that was oddly well suited to her shape. "What do you have there?" Datamon asked moving closer to see it better.

"Its an old Pokedex we had," Bob replied as the group turned to face him. "A field research encyclopedia with a compact sensor array. Labs typically send them out with sponsored trainers who act as research assistants."

"'Sponsored trainers'?" HackBiyomon asked before he could inquire on the device itself. "Sponsored for what?"

The clear answer was 'The Pokemon League', but Datamon waited for the others to reply to see how they viewed the organization. "Well, some kids going for their first League run live near a Professor's Lab. Labs typically need to collect pokemon to use in their research and information on what pokemon are like in the wild. So the Professors sponsor a number of those kids to do the basic data and test subject collection," Alice supplied without even realizing that the proper reply was needed first. "The new trainers get a high quality starter pokemon from the Lab, typically the rarer and more prestigious species for their region, along with access to the Lab's storage for any pokemon that they can't keep on hand with them."

"The Lab also tends to pay for a lot of their stuff too," Bob added nodding. "The kids get an account for food and other basic supplies, and maybe get some specific items for completing tasks for the Profs. That's why they get Pokedex units, so they have the tools on hand to do the basic research work that the Lab is really after. They make sure to have the rewards be really nice stuff to encourage the trainers to get good data."

"This was an older model, so the sensors weren't the greatest, but we figured that the database would be a good reference guide for your assistant," Absolmon blandly said looking critically at the two digimon.

"You modified it for her use?" Datamon asked with some confusion over the clearly well made casing. It was strangely perfect for her.

"Nope, it changed to look like that as soon as she touched it," Bob said calmly as if that was simply a thing that happened all the time in their world. "Apparently she's a copy of a chosen one?" he then asked with simple curiosity.

"What do you mean 'it changed'?" the machine digimon asked harsh enough to cause his assistant to freeze in place. "I was under the impression that things shifting in that manner was not a natural thing for physical worlds."

"Really? It isn't as if everything changes to fit whoever is using it at the time, but important individuals and events can reshape items by their energies," Anderson cut in walking up to the group, the first Shrine floating behind him and the first Goliath at his side. "Should she truly be a duplicate of a chosen one for a digital world then it is not unreasonable that an information analysis device would react to her ownership."

Datamon paused for a moment to look between the 'Pokedex' and the small makeshift Digivice attempt in his hands. "She was made from a scan of one of the Digidestined. Humans with digimon partners they were able to make temporarily evolve using Digivices, small electronic devices that preformed a number of functions," he dully told the assembled group as he processed yet another mistaken idea. "I was in the process of trying to make a recreation of one just now, but perhaps that is no longer needed. I was hoping that her change to possess Hackware characteristics would allow her to produce those temporary evolutions in them."

"A very nice ability," the developer said with some joy. "I can see why you have her as an assistant."

"Yes, that is the reason I requested the scan," Datamon lied eying the human cautiously. "Let us see if this 'Pokedex' has given her the ability."

\---

"Brother, what are the results on your Dark Network fragment? Can it be moved to our intended destination?" A-0 asked its brother over the communication system while looking over the responses to their request to make a custom digital world for the trap.

"Where is everyone else?" the Giratina shaped Porygon asked looking at the mostly empty room using the two way video feed. "I thought we still had an all hands on deck problem."

"Shawn's team got called into Box 140 to deal with some Bug types having an issue with a group of Grass types," Janice answered. "I'm working with Metagross to see what we can do now that they evolved, we didn't have time before the raid to go over it and its a waiting game now."

"Quagsire's team is with Investigators showing the combat capacity of Champion digimon and training with Strangle," the mentioned Steel/Psychic type droned slightly less robotically than before their evolution.

"Specifically it is a waiting game until we have a way to track their current location," A-0 added. "Which Gazimon suspects we can do using his old Dark Network access the right way."

"Well, I've nearly finished investigating the possibility of survivors," Charlie 13 said unhappily. "From what I've seen you'd either need to be really primitive and well stored, or just very powerful, to have survived being in the part Upload stole. You'd still end up shredded, but given what Gazimon says Datamon survived in that report, that isn't an issue for him. The apparent power an Ultimate would have is also enough that he likely could hold his data together fairly well."

"So they might get some Gazimon then?" Janice asked frowning.

"No, if there were any below Rookie or stored as data then somebody might have been able to sift them out of the system, but I can barely salvage any of our Gazimon remains," the Administrator replied seriously.

"What does 'barely' mean here?" A-0 asked latching onto the statement.

"From analysis of digimon and Hackware I'm rather sure I've figured out where the minds were located in most of the targets," he told his sibling reluctantly. "The Network was made for data analysis, and something set it off to try and basically eat everything around it. A custom virus that I think is Datamon's work from my limited access to his code from the Goliaths, and from what Gazimon has described of his main activities. The minds have the most damage from the Network, for want of a better term, digesting them. Tyranomon was lucky in that he was in an outer edge of the Network, and I've found the minds to two Gazimon who might be recoverable as well."

"The minds of two Gazimon," Janice repeated clearly understanding the specification.

"I might be able to repair the body of one of them, but I need to ask our current digimon about what is appropriate to use in trying," Charlie 13 quietly clarified. "There is a near intact Monochromon available that I might be able to put the other into, the best preserved body left in the mess. After those two minds and bodies the rest were either shredded by the system before the fragment got here, damaged during the arrival, or split into parts when Upload stole the larger portion of the fragment."


	38. 2-14 Revival

\--- Revival ---

"So, your plan is to put one Gazimon into a Monochromon, and to try and fix the other with parts of the other digimon?" Tyranomon asked looking around Box 113. The rest of Quagsire's team was cautiously moving along conjured rocks between the larger platforms, while Shawn's team was moving much more rapidly across a second path. They had waited a couple of days to allow the development teams and Porygon to look over the situation more clearly to try and find better options.

"That is the option I'm asking you and Gazi about," Charlie 13 replied floating next to the group. "We can't move the remains without likely destroying what is left of them, but we need to do something to repair them properly. If we can use the existing digimon data the result should be less unstable."

"So I can't setup the trap somewhere we can contain it until we get the rest of the remains out of it?" Gazimon asked looking at the distortions. "I hate to ask, but how many are dead in there?"

"Sadly, from what I can tell most of the digimon that were inside of this fragment of the Dark Network were completely spread across the whole fragment. A couple of dozen of them in total ended up in my Box when you did, and Tyranomon was the only digimon lucky enough to be entirely in the part we still have," the Administrator told them sounding depressed. "These other two are the only complete minds I have left."

"So Datamon is the only digimon we know was lucky enough to be entirely in Upload's fragment?" Shawn asked frowning.

"Well, I've actually found some parts of him in these, so no. They only got his entire mind and most of his body out," Charlie 13 clarified. "I'm fairly sure from the data analysis that a lot of them were spread over everything. Upload probably only had one or two other recoverable digimon beside Datamon in their part of things, and it is looking like they were somehow specifically grabbing his fragments."

"You don't seem to be too upset by the idea," Kabutops nervously told his digimon teammate. "Is this common where you guys are from or something?"

"Among the forces of darkness such actions are common. The Gazimon will probably be happy with this result," Tyranomon complained. "If the other digimon are so far gone as everyone is saying then we might as well save who we can. I'll admit that I might feel differently if we could reach our digital world to allow the data back into the proper cycle of reincarnation, but I doubt we will have that option anytime soon."

"The bigger problem is going to be putting one into a Monochromon," Gazimon added, sounding callous toward the other digimon's reaction. "The one's I've met seemed rather simple even without the Network taking over their bodies, so I'm not sure how well that would work."

"I doubt that will be a problem," Grant said confidently. "I mean we do have the whole mind to put into the body right? That should take care of the rest."

"I might have also found some motor skills from other Monochromon," Charlie 13 mumbled uneasily. "Just to be sure they don't need help with controlling the body."

"Even better then," the larger digimon said sounding reassuring. "The only thing I have to ask is if the other remains can be extracted from the part of the Dark Network we intend to restore?"

"No," the Administrator said grimly but firmly. "To be blunt I already damaged the two we are going to revive now when I brought you back. They are in worse shape, and the only thing left stable enough to survive their extraction is the Network's code itself."

"You can't get the rest out at the same time?" Gazimon asked sounding more sympathetic now.

"The other plans we have are just based on how we get these two back on their feet. I have half of a third mind I might have been able to save, but extracting these two will disrupt it too much and I can tell that most of its mind is simply not available," the Porygon replied as they reached the pillars again. "Are you ready with the digi-balls?"

\---

She frowned at the two Goliath using her power to maintain that form. The sensation of giving energy to them in order to evolve was in one way familiar from Sora's memories, but Sora had a different sort of energy than she did now. Now the power in her body felt much smaller, and she could use it herself as well TO AID HER MASTER like the elemental powers of the local monsters.

"There is a degree of amplification present," Anderson said looking between her and the Hackware. "You are expending far less typed energy than they are getting in digital energy, that is allowing for evolution despite a mismatch in overall energy."

"Sora didn't even notice when she did this," HackBiyomon complained in a harsh tone almost as alien as her MASTER's CONTROL. Both her new Pokedex and Absol had said that Dark typed monsters were meaner than others, and it seemed from Sora's memories that she had lost some of the human's patience. "Biyomon was the one who ended up hungry afterward, not her."

"They are definitely exerting more energy like this," Alice replied deliberately not noticing the angry way the digimon had spoken. "It is actually worse than if they had simply evolved normally to this form, I think it takes some of their existing digital energy as well to keep the change going. They can't convert their limited amount of typed energy, which makes sense as it is a bit off compared to a pokemon's."

"No, conversion between the two is simply not possible most of the time," Absol corrected the tech. "When I run out of the digital energy that allows me to preform data manipulation I am left only with my types. Even my added Ghost type can't help me do more than my pool of digital energy allows."

"Added type?" the bird digimon asked turning with surprise to look at the other hybrid. The idea that becoming a hybrid always included having your 'types' changed seemed far better than it being another indication that she had been simply made into an evil digimon.

"The Ghost type," he replied actually sounding uneasy, and given the implications of that name she could not blame him. "I'm not dead, but I'm also a lot more 'playful' than before. Jokes and pranks, which thanks to me being a Dark type as well tend to be rather harmful."

"Given it was the fusion or a permanent crippling I'd say you dropping things on us last minute and saying things overly cryptically are worth actually knowing what's coming," Bob reassured the pokemon. "Yeah, that's why we wanted him talking to you about the Dark type instead of Murkrow, he has experience."

"I've been told that shorter term transformations have less of a mental effect," the white furred canine complained. "But our energies are our selves, changing them shouldn't be done lightly."

HER MASTER KNEW WHAT WAS BEST FOR HER, she was forced to think as they clearly disapproved of what happened to her without saying it outright. "So types cannot change normally?" she asked trying to outmaneuver her MASTER's overly zealous control program.

"It can happen when you evolve, but that has mental changes of its own," Bob contributed. "For example you are adding the Steel type to these guys when you do this, which gives them a big defensive boost that is almost worth more than just the increase in power given our biggest threats seem to be Grass and Dragon typed."

\---

Even Charlie 13 was shuddering a bit at the way the distortions had sputtered during the repeat of his resurrection process. The damaging sparks had happened before, but the previous time had been just a few fragments so it was hard to tell apart from simply separating out the smokey remains. This time he had tapped the broken areas of space rapidly and in multiple locations while looking increasingly worried until he finished collecting two dark balls of gas with a sigh of relief. From there it was a repeat of Tyranomon's resurrection for each of the two spheres.

"Okay, this right here, this is why I'm terrified of what you have done to him," the digital dinosaur said pointing to Gazimon. "That was a fairly blatant ritual to restore the data of the dead that I would only expect something like a god of the dead to manage."

"I'm fairly sure that being able to do this isn't just because I'm shaped like one of those," Charlie 13 cautiously replied. "The one on the left is in her original body, and the right one is now a Monochromon. I'll warn you that I used your species to repair quite a bit of the first one's body."

"Let her out first then, I'm sure you'll understand my feelings on this after speaking to her," the red scaled monster said smiling darkly. Gazimon huffed a bit of purple flame, then walked up to tap the sphere to the left.

The digimon that emerged was mostly the same as the Gazimon they were familiar with, her fur was more of a dull brownish red color instead of his purple. However, clear patches of Tyranomon were visible on her body, most notably her entire right arm was instead a mirror of his scaly claw. Spots of scales were present on her legs and torso, along with a single tiny green spine in the center of her back. She spent the moment they took to look over her body blinking and seemingly waking up, ending this instant by rubbing her face with her new reptilian appendage.

"Oh shit, Etemon's gonna kill me," she said in a rush looking at the limb. "I finally did it, I went crazy and tore apart one of the damn monkey's pets and now he's going to kill me."

"Huh, I didn't expect to regret being able to say 'I told you so' this much," Tyranomon said in response, causing her to look at the assembled group with some confusion. "The good news is that you don't need to worry about that fate."

The new digimon took a moment to look at all of the monsters present in the Box. "I died and ended up in some kind of nightmare afterlife didn't I?" she asked when she spotted the local Administrator.

"That seems to be the general thought of the digimon I've met," Shawn agreed nodding.

"My Box is not an afterlife," Charlie 13 complained. "Just because I'm in charge of a place meant for Ghost type pokemon doesn't make it an afterlife," he continued making it clear this was an old argument. "Not all of them died before, some were born Ghosts."

"I should have figured you'd end up being one of the two," their Gazimon said tiredly. "I mentioned you, so of course you show up." The new one turned to face him, and then started to giggle.

"The digger? Scaredy digger who spends all his free time reading on the computer instead of anything worthwhile?" she asked getting a flat look. "Wow, how lucky did you have to be to get brought back first?"

"Well, when the Dark Network started eating everyone I dug a hole and hid inside it," he shot back smartly. "That's why I made it here alive." He then turned and started walking over to the other pokeball. "I'm getting the other guy out so we only have to explain this once."

From the second ball emerged a large white scaled four legged lizard monster with metallic plates along its back and a large horn. "Its just an oversized Lairon," Quagsire commented a touch confused while it got its own bearings and looked with some shock at its current form.

"You!" it then rumbled on spotting the other newly revived digimon and shot forward in a charge. The red furred rabbit-lizard let out a cry of fear and tried to jump out of the way. Before it could make it close, however, there was the sound of flesh striking metal and a bit of crackling from the floor as Gazimon stopped the digimon with one arm. "Wha, what?" the new monster said stumbling back.

"Ah, that was a mistake," the purple digimon-pokemon hybrid said shaking the limb out. "Should have used both, damn."

"The digger just stopped a Champion," the other Gazimon said faintly from the floor. "What in the world are they doing here that let you stop a Champion one handed?"

"Good point," he responded absentmindedly opening a pair of panes. "We have to worry that he's in bad shape from being put back together from at least two digimon."

"I don't think this is a Gazimon," the new Monochromon rumbled to her in a male voice. "Wait, am I a guy now too?"

"I think I have the data to fix that problem," Gazimon replied looking between his two black panes. "Huh, you got a name change, TyranoGazimon."

"Hey, Gazi, she is the one you said was working on modifying digimon right?" Serperior asked moving forward to look over the two new digimon.

"Given that you are asking I definitely was attacking the wrong person," the metal armored digimon said shaking their body off. "So maybe you can all explain what is actually happening here?"

\---

A cracking sound interrupted the quiet atmosphere of the Troubleshooter Lab while the Investigators waited for the others to return with news on the revival attempts. Vibration was the most surprised of all of them as the layers of bark began stripping off his body to reveal pale green scales underneath. "Uh, I thought I still had a day or two before turning back?" he asked the assembled group nervously, the machine at the center of the room informing the humans present of his worry.

"Reports from Professor Larch indicate that enjoyment or dislike of alteration to typing can have an effect on duration for longer term methods of change," Metagross replied managing a reassuring tone. This brief moment of relief was quickly overtaken by the removal of the thin layer from the edges of the Flygon's wings, showing that the normally red band at the edge was now a nearly white purple color.

"Smile, how long should it be before Trick-Or-Treat wears off now?" the still triple typed pokemon asked uneasily hovering without flapping his wings.

"At any point now," the Gourgeist replied failing to keep a touch of fear out of his voice. "We should give it a half hour or so."

"I hope that is the case," Janice said dryly. "Short of Delta 2 getting a breakthrough on removing types from people that is our only real option on that front."

"What would that mean though?" Strangle asked with a deliberately controlled tone. "That the move just got stuck or?" She let the question hang incomplete, unable to finish even attempting to say what other possibility came to her mind.

"Hey, I'm still here!" Vibration complained. "Even if it did kill me it didn't manage to get rid of me. So why worry about something that might not even be true."

"I've read the information the Professor had on this kind of thing," Jack said sounding less uneasy than his starter. "There is this stuff his work mentions called 'Wisp's Breath', which sorta works like the move. If you spend too much time under its effects you can't turn back." He looked at his Ground/Dragon/Ghost pokemon. "There is a whole page of notes here on why it isn't killing the pokemon when this happens, including a bit about how Froslass are another case of that kind of change happening to a pokemon."

"Uh, I think I know about that stuff," Smile nervously said looking regretfully at his still ghostly teammate. "And if it is what I think you mean, it does work a lot like Trick-Or-Treat."

"Well hearing about it was making me feel better about the idea, but then Jack said they needed to give an entire page of notes about how it somehow doesn't mean that I died," the Flygon said shaking his head. "Seriously though, even if I did get myself killed I am still here now. Not like Smile isn't a part of a team just because he died before."

"Can we not talk about that? I'm not really comfortable with talking about how you are still a Ghost, let alone how I became one," the Gourgeist complained looking towards his pokeball as if he was considering escaping the conversation entirely.

"I agree, I'm mad enough that I wasn't there to stop this without thinking about other pokemon dying," Strangle said quiet enough that it took a moment for the translator to identify the statement and repeat it for the humans.

"Yes, yes I was definitely a pokemon," Smile said now clearly moving to get his ball. The rest of his team deliberately did not look at him after he said this.

"Of course," Jack agreed returning the pokemon. "I really hope he didn't actually mean what that sounded like," he then told the room once the Ghost/Grass type was technically out of earshot.

"There have only been three recorded instances of a Yamask that wasn't either human before or descended from former humans," Janice cut in. "It actually is rather odd to see a pokemon's face as one of their masks. We had one of the three staying with Charlie 13 a while back, a former Lucario. Even if he did mean he used to be human that isn't entirely unusual for Ghost types."

"Troubleshooters also seem to commonly be former humans," Metagross joked, looking around the room clearly trying to gauge how its attempt at humor went. Their trainer smiled at the statement, but nobody really found it funny enough to laugh.

"Given what is happening right now I guess thinking about what happens when we die is a thing," Roberts said looking over information on one of the systems setup for research. "Considering one of them is even going to be a different species it is even topical."

\---

"Well, that's just wonderful," the new Monochromon rumbled, now in a feminine tone. "I guess we should feel lucky that you took the time to make sure we survived to help you kick Datamon back to storage?"

"We weren't going to do anything with this stuff before at least trying to save anyone we could," Gazimon replied a touch harshly now focusing on the data for TyranoGazimon. "You two are the lucky ones who weren't totally shredded and then split apart."

"You couldn't have put me into a Tyranomon?" the reptile countered with a huff. "At least those are something Gazimon actually evolve into."

"Honestly? The largest surviving part of a Tyranomon we had left is now TyranoGazimon's arm," Charlie 13 admitted. "It was already really bad in the fragment, I mean, so bad that some of those scale patches are from two different Tyranomon."

"Not to mention that given what these people can do to digital worlds and life you are probably perfectly fine at this point," the living Tyranomon noted, then turned to his trainer. "Quagsire, do you think they're calm enough to let LAS out to give them the full checkup?"

"I could use the help," Gazimon agreed frowning at the data in front of him. "A-0 is still setting up the new place for the fragment, and I'm still not the best at understanding this."

There was a pop as the amphibian pokemon released the jellyfish shaped digital life form with a sigh. "Alright, LAS, we have two new digimon here, and probably should have them checked out before we try and transport them," she told the maybe-digimon.

"Gazimon, is the red Gazi monster as bad off as she appears?" the LAS asked first while looking at the two newly revived digimon, her surface shifting to data readouts of each along with images of the body parts she was scanning.

"I was kinda hoping you'd say she wasn't," he admitted walking closer to inspect the patches of scales. Inspecting them closely he turned thoughtfully to the Box Administrator. "Hey, can you make us a mirror real quick? Maybe she knows how to help with her new set of issues."

TyranoGazimon blinked in shock as a silvery block appeared out of the ground in front of her, then frowned with annoyance at what she could see in the reflection. "You guys just put the data into spots where mine was missing, didn't you?" she asked scratching at the edge of a patch of scales that was oriented in two different directions. "I'm not sure how you could have pulled that off, but there are ways to make stuff fit together better with just a bit of equipment." She then looked around the area, spotting the pillars and etchings, but clearly trying to find mechanical devices.

"Added data fragments still have references to their original owners," the digital jellyfish said uneasily, one of her surface panels changing to a display of the digimon with a variety of colors to indicate the issue. "Locations noted, can you receive files?" she asked Gazimon, who nodded opening another black pane. "Other digimon is relatively stable, only minor references remain comparatively."

"I think I can handle some of this too," Charlie 13 said with a laugh. "Although it is good to see you're more comfortable with the changes we had to make to you Gazi."

"I can make my own furniture now," the purple furred rabbit said closing one pane and causing a black flash of light around TyranoGazimon. The patches of scales then shifted slightly so that their orientation and color better fit with her fur. "Plus this stuff, this stuff is cool too."

"Okay, who went crazy and decided to make the digger here into a digital god?" TyranoGazimon asked stretching out, clearly moving much more easily. "Because that right there was something even Datamon would need an entire room full of gear to pull off."

"It was the same kind of accident that resulted in myself being less human," Shawn contributed looking over the pair thoughtfully.

"I think maybe this time we should actually ask them if they even want to fight," Kabutops added looking towards the two digimon. "We forgot that step with Tyranomon."

"Hmph, might as well," Monochromon told the group pawing at the ground while the local Administrator fixed the minor issues with her body. "Not much else I can do like this really, and it sounds nice to be somebody giving out the beatings instead of just taking them."

"I'm still a Rookie as far as I can tell," the other new revival noted cautiously. "But if you guys can do this kind of thing they maybe I can help in other ways? I was the closest thing my team had to a field medic."

"You are currently around level 34, as a pure digimon that is better than what Gazimon would be at around 18. He possesses typed energy as well that is currently contributing to an overall level in the high 30s or low 40s," the LAS informed her calmly. "Monochromon is at approximately 60, with possible improvement from repairs to her overall structure and conditioning. Given information available on digimon development I can give a tentative maximum of 40 for yourself and 70 for her. If additional materials are available Tyranomon might also reach 70 with repairs done using this same method."

The two new digimon looked blankly at the digital life form. "That's some sort of standard combat rating scale, isn't it?" TyranoGazimon asked dully, getting an embarrassed nod from the jellyfish creature. "Oh boy, we're stuck in the kind of place where they think to track that."

"There are places without one?" Grant asked uncertainly. "I mean, I guess we didn't have one back in my previous life, but that was before there was really civilization. Well, at least I didn't bother with civilization much."

"You had a system for telling how dangerous your food would end up being that you set up in a corner of your cave," Quagsire corrected her pokemon/trainer. "That probably counted back then."

"Wait, did the red eyed guy say 'less human'? As in he was human before?" Monochromon noted turning to face Shawn directly. "You can give humans digimon parts too?"

"Most of us are pokemon, not digimon," the amphibian replied. "In our world at least humans are just monsters that can't really use moves. Not to mention odd cases like him and Grant here," she continued tapping the Armaldo.

"That's a giant bug monster," the red fur and scale coated digimon said pointing at the fossil pokemon. "No part of his body looks remotely human, and I'm fairly sure it is harder to change humans into monsters than even fixing the two of us like this."

"Oh no, I evolved fairly naturally all things considered. Shawn was the one who switched bodies," the Rock/Bug said happily.

"Ah, so I'm normal among this group then?" Monochromon asked getting a general agreement from the Troubleshooters.

\---

"Anderson, what is your opinion on adding some of the Hackware's data manipulation capacity to HackBiyomon?" Datamon asked cautiously, attempting to keep his tone concerned for his new assistant rather than his actual goal. "The transport methods of your Stones and the counter used by DSS seem to be very useful options to have at hand." They were in the process of setting up additional structural elements around his lab to extend the size and provide more security to the entrance to their world.

"Her Hackware components are currently a more stable variant on a Vir trio's collective set, which can easily be developed into a more specialized set at her level of complexity," the developer responded with a smile. "There should be fairly minor changes as she learns the specific methods, but I can understand your concern about going down a less desirable path on accident." He turned to set more of the strangely advanced modular power/data conduit into the wall. "You should take some time to watch the other kinds preform their training directives, Vir in particular tend to experiment with all available options until they find the one that works best with the small manufacturing differences they possess."

The digimon considered that methodology. It would allow for much greater practical skill from the resulting evolutions, but at the cost of increasing the time for development of the final product. Creating a clone of an existing creature was very energy and processing intensive, and if he had not been so greatly mistaken about the function of the Digivice then he would not have even attempted it with the girl. "How big of a difference does being suitable for these capabilities create?" he asked aloud.

"Most typically a longer execution time, and less effective results. The energy expended isn't notably different when fully trained in the action, but those considerations never reach the same potential," Anderson replied nodding. "We can tell which evolution they would have been better suited to mainly by inspecting which properties don't atrophy as greatly as a typical example. In the past we've had a few that were made into Crabs who would be better off as the others, resulting in a notable amount of manipulation ability being retained despite their form."

"From your tone I would guess they are not among our survivors?" Datamon asked trying for sympathy, but doubtful that he succeeded at that tone. He had never been that good at faking it.

The distraction of another lost memory nearly cost him hearing his answer. "Thomas was actually quite happy with them," the human said with what seemed to be genuine remorse. "They worked well for minimizing Hackware usage on operations, and he hated using more than he absolutely needed to. Only a few cases in total occurred, all lost before our first attempt against DSS to moderately advanced security systems."

The digimon was not sure how to respond to this. He simply could not tell what part was the upsetting thing, as he could understand the reaction of their former leader, but there almost seemed to be a dislike of the idea alongside the statements. Perhaps he was thinking of the missed potential, but the machine monster did not know what sort of response would earn the distrust of this overly intelligent human.

"While I'm quite sure you have your own requirements for an assistant, and no doubt a truly intelligent individual will have greater flexibility, it might be better if you allowed myself and Alice to try and teach her the application of our own methods to see which variations and subsystems she works best with," Anderson offered after a moment. "We will keep deliberate modifications to a minimum, as those can throw off existing abilities noticeably and are not guaranteed to help."

It was about being able to use skills one was good at effectively, Datamon realized. A key factor in longer term effectiveness, and why it was so good to see HackBiyomon was able to evolve others. "That would be appreciated, Anderson. I'm sure the two of your would be quite able to find her skill set given your past experience," he agreed genuinely happy. "Do you think she might be capable of using the world generation capacity?" he asked suddenly hopeful that a more easily controlled asset could have that previously unimaginable power.

"Perhaps with an evolution of her own, or an external power source of some kind. It would be far easier for her to simply evolve a Stone and have it execute a stored copy of the program for her," the developer said nodding. "Carrying the code within internal storage should be more than possible."

"Internal data storage?" the digimon asked to clarify, thoughts going rapidly at the possibility. There were a number of targets where the Dark Network was simply not trustworthy enough for his purposes. The Gazimon had some basic access to check what he used the system to look for, and Etemon's changes to limit his capabilities also prevented him from easily removing the access. So far it was just a rush job to try and find their location, including looking up reference files to see what the data meant, along with a pitiful attempt to hide his actions.

"Yes, among other kinds. Stones can also store some small items digitally, and so far it appears Shrines will have a much larger containment area," Anderson informed him easily. "I am less sure if that can be adapted to her use, as Absol is currently incapable of the feat."

\---

TyranoGazimon looked on the new world they had transferred into after getting a basic fix with a mixture of awe and horror. It was a fully stocked and equipped medical facility with literally every machine she could have hoped for to use with her past goal of improving her abilities without technically violating Etemon's warning regarding evolution, and then a few more devices on top of that. Which terrified her because she could not imagine anyone having both the access and will to create such a place being any less of a threat than she had planned on becoming.

"So, here they are. My sibling is arriving soon, it finally got the new world stable enough to leave be for now," the pink egg-like polygonal god said looking over her and the new Monochromon. "You two look a lot worse than Tyranomon had, especially you." The 'Administrator' pointed right at her.

"Yeah, I can feel how bad I look," TyranoGazimon commented, a bit of a growl creeping into her tone. It was almost like when she had evolved before, with new sensations and instincts, but not quite to the extent that had been. "Not to mention that I'm still not fond of the connection at my shoulder here, although given it isn't literally stitched on it is better than what I'd be able to do myself."

"Better in theory or practice?" the monster asked suddenly far more serious.

"I've only done that kind of work once," she confessed uncertainly. "The guy didn't get full movement back in the leg though, so not that much of a success."

"Right, I'm taking this one," Delta 2 said to the human looking monster. "Because that is already more experience than any other options I have for possible assistants."

"I just got here and my sister is already poaching one of them," a new voice said from an edge of the room. At first glance this appeared to be another polygonal monster, this one pink, blue, and vaguely bird.

"Why are you faking polygons like that?" she asked the newcomer before her brain finished going over the shape in more detail. The entire room now shifted to look at the creature, particularly the owner of the world.

"Because this is my preferred form," was the harsh response, accompanied by an evil glare.

"A-0, what does she mean by that," the sister asked coldly.

"Wait, you didn't know?" Shawn asked genuinely confused. "I thought you were in on this."

"You knew?" A-0 asked the human with some surprise.

"Can someone explain for the rest of us?" the digger asked looking a bit uneasy. "Because I was switched with him just a little while ago, and if this has anything to do with that I want to know."

"How long have you been evolved?" Delta 2 asked with a tone that had gone beyond simply cold straight to glacial ice.

"A year or two," A-0 confessed quietly. "It hasn't been that big of a change."

"Are you telling me that you have been hiding the fact that you evolved into a Porygon-2 for years now? I've been trying to figure out why none of the standard upgrade patterns were looking like they would work for you!" the medic complained in a tone that was more familiar to TyranoGazimon. The sound of a medical professional that had been tricked into ignoring an attempt at dealing with a problem yourself. "You are lucky we are custom work, or I would have probably crippled you trying to fix some issues that now seem like they might simply be that you are a more advanced-" The pink creature cut off suddenly. "This is about you being different from us, isn't it? About how we can't evolve because of our connections to the Boxes."

"Connection?" the part Tyranomon said to herself looking at the polygonal structure of the world itself they were inside of thoughtfully. The new digimon, or whatever it was, used a lot of polygons to look like very few polygons, but there were also a whole lot of them making up the world around her.

"A bit more processing power, just enough to keep up with what the Charlies were doing, and the ability to change what I look like. All it actually did was make me feel less like I was too old to keep operating," the pink and blue one said tiredly.

"What sort of connection?" TyranoGazimon asked half shouting to get everyone's attention. "Because if you're saying that you are actually this whole place then he probably still has less complexity than you do."

"What? That," Delta 2 said quietly before turning towards a particularly advanced sensor system and practically throwing herself inside. "Damn, she's right. We knew it takes longer for Charlies and Deltas to get setup into their Boxes properly, and that it takes something special for an Alpha or Beta to catch up with them, but I think my new apprentice just figured out what it is. Most of us are actually really spread out Porygon-2, instead of just really advanced standard Porygon."

"Charlie 13 has been attempting extra-dimensional calculations," Shawn cut in worried. "How do we tell if he's accidentally made himself into a Z?"

"I'm already planning out how to do a full checkup on pokemon I can't go and meet," the Administrator said thoughtfully. "Given things have been stable this long I might just wait until TyranoGazimon here knows enough to help me more directly."

"You do know that I planned on doing this kind of thing before right?" she asked pointing with her still fuzzy left arm at her scaly right. "I was genuinely considering ripping apart another digimon just to get stronger."

"I have just gotten done discussing the morality of a rather malicious Slowpoke that despite being an already fast thinking member of his species was going out of his way to find Shellder to stick on his head as a brain enhancing poison crown," the Porygon told her as if she knew what any of that meant. "We are still working with a dragon that literally was begging us to use untested digital corruption to give her new abilities that after the fact it is clear she did not quite understand. As long as you don't actually tear apart anyone we don't want you to you should be okay."

"Given the Parasect I met a couple days ago said his family regularly uploads themselves into mushrooms I'm kinda afraid of how close other pokemon get to doing what you're talking about," Gazimon added looking nervously at the others, as if dreading getting confirmation.

"I don't know of anything like that," the snake monster said cautiously. "But if some Parasect are uploading themselves instead of just being taken over, then maybe some Beldum are less into asking before they use another to become a Metang."

"Still, we have a checkup to complete here," Delta 2 said refocusing the group. "Then it is probably best for all of you to spend at least some time back in the physical world getting the full briefing on our current issues."

\---

They returned to the pokemon world to find a morose group trying not to think to hard about the Flygon's possible death. "Wow, who died while we were being brought back to life?" TyranoGazimon asked a touch harshly while looking with some unease at the humans present.

"Uh, well I probably did it a while before that, but me," Vibration said uncertainly.

"Well, at least you aren't wooden anymore," Grant contributed scratching at his neck plates. "You seemed more upset with not being a Dragon type than not being alive before."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean it isn't still a problem," the three typed pokemon said looking at the fossil in confusion.

"These are our two new digimon?" Janice asked trying to change topics. "I didn't realize that Monochromon were basically just Lairon." She tapped at her console to bring up a picture of the mentioned Steel/Rock type.

"That's the second time someone has brought those up," the new Monochromon said dully, then blinked at the image. "Although I guess I see why. I had thought we were going to the human world."

"Whatever happened to Shelly anyway?" Strangle asked her trainer. "She was a nice rock for our team to keep safe behind."

"She wanted to go with a Steel type focused trainer I met at the League, and I wasn't really doing that great at keeping her in shape at that point," Jack admitted regretfully.

"If you've worked with one before maybe we should have her stick with you," Investigator Roberts suggested. "My team is fairly well equipped at this point, and it would be a familiar stopgap while Strangle is getting back into shape."

"I'd say that was quick, but the pink medical monster barely let me say anything before she claimed me," TyranoGazimon said sighing. "Now, how exactly is a Lairon different?"

"Steel type is probably the biggest one," Gazimon said looking thoughtful. "So, we know that Tyranomon doesn't want to fight, which means there isn't much reason to give him a type, but you two don't have that same thought."

"Given how 'battle mad' he says it drove you, and I have to admit your a lot more into fighting now, that probably is something to take some time to consider," Serperior cautioned.

"Ha, I didn't even get any network access because I was too fight happy," Monochromon laughed. "Bring it on."

"Access to additional Dark Network accounts was one benefit we were expecting from resurrecting the two of you," Metagross told the metal plated reptile a touch unhappily.

"Then you had bad luck, I got mine stripped for misuse a week before it all went down," TyranoGazimon added with a frown. "I know the codes for a couple of other Gazimon, but I doubt they will work that great without those guys within scanning distance of the Dark Network."


	39. 2-15 Evolutionary Attack

\--- Evolutionary Attack ---

"Right, so Gazimon can breathe fire," Monochromon half shouted across the training field, looking worried at the smaller digimon she was battling. The idea was to get an idea on the condition of their bodies and how well they could control them.

"Dragon fire specifically, it has properties that are rather different from the normal kind," Shawn informed her from his side of the field, having suggested making this fight a proper battle between himself and Jack to explain the idea. They had already seen the two Serperior face off, followed soon after by the more battle ready snake taking down the two Ghost types.

"I'm honestly trying to figure out how much of him is still a Gazimon at this point," TyranoGazimon said from next to Salamence and the LAS. The two were teaching her about the use of a dedicated medical scanner that Delta 2 had provided.

Monochromon attempted another charge forward into her smaller opponent, but Gazimon easily slid out of the way while slashing with black energy coated claws along her side as she passed. "Gah, what the hell was that?" she asked skidding slightly across the ground. "Wait a second, stop. What was that, how is he pulling an attack that strong out?"

"I'm more pokemon than digimon now," the Dark type said sounding a bit uncertain about it. "At least when I'm not evolved. We're still trying to work out if I'll actually start being better off not evolving in some cases."

"How would you guys react to me wanting that kind of power?" the armored digimon asked cautiously.

"I'd be fine with it," Salamence called out a bit smugly. "Although from experience it might take a while."

"There is a difference between an untested method of conversion created from a rogue computer program, and a previously done modification executed by those with knowledge of what they are doing," the LAS countered dryly.

"A really big one," TyranoGazimon agreed itching at the edge of a patch of scales. "From what I've heard about your corrupt digimon I wouldn't trust using them for parts without a lot of testing. Given what I look like right now that means quite a bit."

"I'm hearing a conditional yes there," Monochromon rumbled happily. "Right, I'll wait for the full list of side effects and options, but if I can get more than just this body I'm going for it."

"Well the Steel type is obvious," Vibration noted to his new teammate, his now ghostly body idly passing through the ground for a moment as he lost track of how high off it he was hovering. "I guess you could try pure Steel if you didn't find anything else that fit." A moment was taken for Serperior to translate for the Flygon. "It should also let you understand us," the pokemon complained at this.

"Having a translator on our team would help," Strangle said, then sighed at having her brother once again needed to get the information across.

"I'm probably getting at least translation," TyranoGazimon added after hearing the complaint. "Delta 2 is forward thinking enough to consider what I'll be doing after this is all over, and I for one like this world a lot better than our old one already." She smiled flexing her clawed right hand.

"Agreed, any place that lets you fight while having access to real after battle medicine is the better place in my book," the other new revival agreed laughing.

"We should probably head back in," Shawn cautioned the group. "Go get something to eat and then stay ready for any attacks. They likely have some forces now to lauch attacks when they figure out what to go after, and Monochromon seems in good enough shape to be safe if we need her against Goliaths."

\---

The information clicked into place in the back of her mind, she could tell it was just a seemingly random series of 6 digit numbers without even thinking too hard. HackBiyomon found the experience of storing data inside of herself unusual, but it was just one of many small but totally inhuman things her MASTER WANTED HER TO DO. According to Upload it wasn't actually part of her mind, but instead part of her body that her mind could use. She did not really understand the distinction until the small energy restoration potion had also been placed into the same area in an earlier test, which had made it clear that it was more of a pocket inside of her that she could look at without opening rather than literally fusing with her body.

"Very good," he said using a small device to access her internal storage to verify the data. "You should be more than capable of getting the information I am after now." The two of them were alone in the expanded facility built around his initial lab. "There is limited information available to us now on the layout of their digital worlds, and I will need more information on that to aid with maintaining the disruption in transport to this one." He looked at her seriously. "And you are not to speak to the others of this," he ORDERED CLEARLY. "But it will also assist me in creating a way back to our own digital world."

"Where am I going Master?" she ASKED TO COMPLY AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. "We still have limited Champion stage forces," she PROVIDED AS ADDITIONAL TACTICAL INFORMATION. She KEPT A FROWN OFF HER FACE at the awkward sensation of the control programs forcing a reaction out of her. She COULD NOT even fiddle with her Pokedex while he was focusing directly on her.

"There is a number of references to regional data transmission locations. According to the information here they are not high enough bandwidth to be reliable for our own transport, but it should have data I can use to get the information I am after," he told her gleefully. "I can easily justify the attack to our new allies with the first reason for the attack, and you can get the information I want to me without risk of access by others."

HackBiyomon found herself NODDING EAGERLY at this requirement even as she kept silent about her suspicions regarding the true goals Upload had with training her in these abilities. "What information shall I be collecting?" she asked.

"I will provide you with a program to execute inside of the system," MASTER DATAMON started, then paused. "No, I will provide two programs, one now for the data I don't want them aware of and another in front of them for the data we tell them we require. These will generate the data files I will be able to use to map out the digital worlds."

There was then a knock on the wall, causing both of them to freeze in place for a moment. "Come on inside," her MASTER said opening the door to the outside remotely. Alice walked in reading information on her portable computer system. "How may we assist you?"

"You mentioned that you wanted to hit a transmission hub," the human replied still focused on the device. "I have a list of information I want to grab during the operation, mainly layout information. Just in case we need to run again." She then removed a small disk from the computer and handed it to the machine digimon. "This is the searches we did the last times we traveled between regions and some more of that information. It also has a program for locating digital worlds I was hoping you could improve upon, we've done what we can with it."

"Of course," MASTER DATAMON said with false cheer. "I'm sure we will be able to add these to my list of objectives easily enough." HackBiyomon wondered darkly how much of this new goal was actually the supposedly secret objectives he had ORDERED her to hide from the others. "Why don't you go help them with preparations while I work on this?"

Genuinely eager to get away from him and the control he put her under she nodded, and only to REMAIN RESPECTFUL didn't rush right out of the building. Instead she followed Alice outside quietly, taking to the air once they left the building. "Before you go, I want to warn you about something," Alice said once the door closed. "You're part Hackware, like Absol, and I know it makes it harder to see them get destroyed. However, we can't really avoid that, it is why we made them to begin with. We will lose some of the Hackware going with you on this, maybe all of them."

"They can talk," HackBiyomon had to whisper thinking of the smaller digimon that the dark forces had threatened back in the other digital world. Biyomon's village of Yokomon was a clear memory, and seemed so much more important now that she was something of a Biyomon herself.

"They can respond, and I'll admit that the newest ones can probably actually talk, but that isn't the problem," the tech replied sadly. "The problem is with how we first coded them. Dos were made to be a defensive system, not a life form. Every one of them since then has their first priority set to acting in the interests of the Hackware development team, and as long as we're on that team they will die for us without thinking twice about it." Even as she stated the information as fact she sounded upset with them for doing it.

"Why not change it so they don't?" the bird digimon had to ask.

"Thomas liked that part of them," Alice said once again speaking badly of their old leader. "And if we could both be honest you know what Datamon would think about it."

HackBiyomon COULD NOT be honest about it, which really seemed to be the point.

\---

"They arrived in the region using the undersea cable, correct?" Janice asked deadly serious while Metagross clearly began to prepare for a rapid transport.

"An information raid?" Jack asked guessing the context. "Go somewhere that we didn't expect them to hit to grab some data."

"Bad news or worse guys?" Gazimon asked suddenly scrambling to look over the data he had in preparation to restart their own Dark Network fragment. "Bad is that doesn't sound like a place we can leave the node inside of, and the worse news is I've sent some data requests to this place already because it can help me track them. I was hoping to get something on the last time they were there, but it also is the kind of stuff I was after to find their new base."

"If they haven't sent you the data already then you might want to try and grab it while we're in there, just in case they try destroying it," A-0 said bluntly.

"Monochromon probably isn't ready for a real battle, but she's also currently better in theory than the rest of my team," Jack added looking nervously at the digital monster's ball. "What do you think, Gazimon, is she up for this?"

"She's solid enough to take hits, but be ready to return her in case of trouble," Shawn responded instead. "We haven't had time to get her used to fighting with that as a backup option yet, so you need to be extra sure."

The Investigator's Assistant looked nervously at his now Ghost typed Flygon and nodded. "I can manage that much."

"She has the mindset for fighting already," Grant added looking at his own pokeball modified for a digimon. "I'd say Monochromon is much better prepared for it than Tyranomon was his first time facing upload, but they didn't have any Goliaths back then either."

"Quagsire, you're backup with Jack," Investigator Roberts instructed. "Our goal is to stop them from escaping with whatever information they are after. Depending on their forces we will either focus on one or the other, if they guard their exit well enough try to make them run, if they don't get it closed."

"It only took Datamon half an hour to get reconnected to the other node, and he can probably set up an entirely new one in less time," Gazimon said saving his work quickly. "A-0 is our best bet to stop him from being able to do that, but then they can try to focus down on it instead."

"I should be fine as long as there are no new surprises, which means I want Quagsire's team with me while the other two try and take out those targets," the recently revealed Porygon-2 noted. "Either that or one of them on the offensive while Gazi helps me with that and the snake twins cover us."

"Tentative threat assessment: 6 Champion digital life forms, 15 Rookie digital life forms. Lesser life forms too plentiful to track. Champions all confirmed Upload units," Metagross cut in sharply. "More data and experience will improve future assessments."

"I'll go over what we were doing with the Dark Network with you when we get back," Gazimon replied to the support pokemon while the others shifted nervously at the number of enemies. "Maybe we can even recover some of the sensory protocols the thing used from our fragment."

\---

They arrived inside the new location just in time to catch part of the Upload force making its way to the thieves' target, or rather the Hackware force led by a pink and red bird monster that mirrored Gazimon's shocked expression when the two of them spotted each other. One of the two Goliath with this group then moved to hold them off while the rest of the Upload forces quickly fled down one of the passages, the enemies sealing a large bulkhead door behind them.

The facility itself was a series of connected glass tunnels and domes surrounded by dark water, as if it was some sort of research lab deep down at the ocean floor. Two large domes were barely visible in the murk outside, and they were currently inside of a third. At least six other smaller domes were in between the larger structures, with a maze of tubes and pipes connecting them with thick doors at either end. They could just barely make out the bird's group running towards one of the larger domes, and a gap between the smaller domes and tunnels showed more Hackware already inside of the other dome.

Serperior and Salamence did not hesitate to hit the Goliath hard, the former using a currently Vaccine attribute spray of leaves while the latter struck with the red flames of a similarly modified Flamethrower attack. While the snake pokemon had intentionally hit with intent to kill, the dragon was instead operating under the idea that the creature was more resistant than normal pokemon from what she had heard of the past encounters with them. This was quickly proven to be a false assumption as the Hackware shattered from the first real attack with a type advantage to hit one.

Salamence stared at the short lived fragments of data blankly for a moment while Quagsire let out the rest of her team to protect A-0. "Looks like you need to go through this dome to get to the outer two. If we can hold it we will split their forces, but we also can get hit from both sides," Shawn informed the pokemon trainers.

"The bird is heading towards the main data archive of this place," A-0 began opening a number of panes. "The Dark Network Node is in the other one, which appears to actually be a restricted access location. They can still escape from anywhere in here while the node is active, but without it that is the only way for them to get in and out. We seem to have been recognized as security and allowed to arrive here in this section instead."

Investigator Roberts let out his Growlithe and looked uncertainly at Salamence. "We should at least try and take out that node," he told her sympathetically. After a moment she nodded with a frown and moved to follow her team out one of the doorways.

"Knocking down walls doesn't seem like a smart idea," Tyranomon commented while Grant looked somewhat longingly at the water outside of the structure. "Is there another path faster than opening that door?"

"Working on it," Gazimon said just before glowing white to change into Youkomon. "That was a Biyomon, not sure how they have one yet, but it is probably Datamon's somehow. We need to take her alive if we can."

"Go with the other form Gazi, I can handle the doors," A-0 said as one of its panes vanished with a flash and the bulkhead opened up. "Internal cameras show that the 'Biyomon' has most of the Rookies, while the node is guarded by three more Goliath and something new. Looks like a giant Stone, so probably their new data manipulator."

\---

HackBiyomon quickly moved into the next connecting dome with her mind torn by many parts of her current situation. She was supposed to be here to steal things, to be the bad guy, and the large group of humans and monsters that she had just run into was the good guys coming to stop her. There was a Gazimon with the good guys, and she was with the bad guys. Her ORDERS made it clear that failure or surrender to these new people was NOT AN OPTION, but a part of her could now consider doing just that, and ending her time as a force of evil before it really started.

"Damn, they somehow got in using a security entrance location," Alice said over the speaker of her Pokedex. "Sorry, Biyo, but looks like they've split us up, we can't hold them back from your team. Looks like it is snake eyes going for you and Roberts heading towards us. We'll keep the node running, get as much data as you can manage." She frowned at the small device angry at the news, and at herself. Team Upload was the reason she could consider such ideas, and it also felt wrong to repay the little bit of freedom they had given her with failing this mission.

"I've already lost one Goliath we brought, and I don't know how long I can keep the Crabs evolved," she shouted back using the device, just as the other naturally evolved Champion turned around and stopped moving. "What are you doing?"

"Delay hostiles," the Hackware replied as she skid to a halt just inside the tunnel out of the smaller chamber. "Seal door." The bulkhead then did just that as the two stones with her obeyed the larger digimon.

"Alice, you said won't think twice about dying, not go on doomed last stands at the drop of a hat!" she complained on the communication line while resuming her rush to the main computer core. The third massive dome turned out to be far different than the other two. While the first had been storage crates and clear platforms, and the second security monitors and short desks, the third was full of rings of dense computer systems reaching up nearly to the curved ceiling with a single massive pillar of electronics at the center going past to a massive set of cables barely visible in the waters above them.

"Wait, who did what now?" the tech asked confused. "Uh, HackBiyomon, I'll get back to you on that, they're here- What the hell did they do to that Salamence?" Given the tone of the statement and the presence of a Gazimon HackBiyomon was suddenly unsure how 'good' the good guys were in this case.

Worried about everything now the digimon found her best option simply to activate the two programs her MASTER had given her. Then a moment later she hissed at how slowly the two bars at the bottom of her vision were advancing. "Right you two, I don't think we're doing this without a fight," she told her two Crabs sadly as she sent the energy for them to evolve.

The remaining two Stones and three Worms went to work on their own data collection from the systems, while the six Vir moved to float next to the two temporary Goliath pointed at the doorway they arrived from. The Vir were the closest to vocal out of the group, and even then with just a general sentiment that roughly translated to "I wish we had some Dos to take hits". HackBiyomon had just about given up trying to understand her new relatives at that point, as it seemed even barely advanced Hackware considered each other expendable too.

The bars had barely gone a fourth of the way, and the sound of fragmenting data seemed far too loud through the two thick doors between her group and where the Champion had remained behind. She shuddered slightly at the sound, but the other Hackware barely reacted. The most she got out of them was one of the Stones providing another bar for how long it was taking her enemies to open the doors. This was progressing faster than the other two, but HackBiyomon found it oddly easy to work out how far the other two would progress by the time it finished assuming a stable rate for all three. It was surprisingly far, so given how her life was going so far it was obviously going to be wrong.

Strangely it was the second bar, MASTER DATAMON's 'secret' orders, that suddenly jumped forward as the program apparently found the location of the data archives it wanted. It quickly finished just before the Worms chirped out messages that turned into data packages that sent the first bar most of the way to completion. Less than a breath later the door opened smoothly with the third estimated progress bar still being less than halfway done.

Instead of a human, snake monster, and the Gazimon there was a red eyed human shaped monster slashing at the Vir with a green blade, a wave of green goo with chilling blue eyes smashing into one of her Goliath, and a large purple fox digimon with floating computer screens around him eying her nervously. The screens then shattered into purple fire that swept forward towards her Stones and Worms as the fox's body shifted into that of a massive dragon version of Devimon.

"How are you the good guys?" she had to shout at this latest development, producing a dark laugh and serpentine smile on the not-human's face. The fireballs smashed one Stone and the remaining Vir, while the other support unit produced a barrier to protect itself and the Worms dove into the floor.

"Honestly, I'm rather surprised myself," the more massive digimon said slashing at the other Goliath. "I think we just fell into a good crowd," he quite clearly joked, earning a dark laugh from both of his teammates.

The blob then slashed at its target strong enough to produce a harsh cracking sound. HackBiyomon checked the progress again, knowing full well that her current partners didn't have much time left. It was nearly complete, and she didn't want to wait any longer. "Alice, I'm getting out of here!" she shouted at her Pokedex, breifly spotting another red device on the belt of the not-humans. The remaining Stone agreed by sending her another program of some kind with something like desperation.

Executing this prompted her to lock onto her allies, which all of her remaining Rookies assisted with as they used similar programs themselves to get past a weight she was suddenly aware of all around them. Once they had each other she saw a black flash that cleared the underwater facility from her view.

\---

Youkomon had four panes open around the disconnected Dark Network Node already, and would likely open more when A-0 got back from showing the owners of the new digital world what they had. This one was the most disruptive yet in terms of what the new devices could do, as a basic scan of the arrival dome revealed functional transfer technology capable of allowing access to a large number of digital worlds. There was now clearly no way they could allow the node to remain inside of this world, and they would also need to find a way to prevent Datamon from producing a new node for it.

"You know, I wasn't expecting that the biggest problem we'd have from being attacked by Upload again would be the sudden appearance of an underwater travel port," one of the owner's technical people said from where she was going over the control systems. "It already looks like our only real option to not risk someone else setting up shop here is to actually use this place."

"It can target the physical world?" Shawn asked from nearby where he was going over the battle damage to the digital structure.

"Unfortunately," she replied with a huff. "We're going to have to setup an entire transport station in here, or at least keep it staffed with some security."

"Not a problem I'd thought we'd be leafing people with," Serperior noted sliding up to his digimon teammate. "Now, what has you spooked Youko?"

"That was a Biyomon," the fox monster noted unhappily. "We didn't have any of those, but the Digidestined did."

"Those are the hero types that your old boss was fighting right?" the serpent asked seriously. "Damn, I don't like the idea that they got caught in there too."

"They didn't. I know for a fact that the only Biyomon that was around was flapping just fine outside of the range of the whole mess. I could see her when the sand started falling up into the hole in reality," Youkomon clarified darkly. "However, she was also captured along with her human partner by Datamon just before everything went wrong."

"A clone then?" Shawn asked, getting a slightly shocked look from the digimon. "Team Rocket had an entire cloning team working on some advanced stuff, and Upload might have some of their notes."

"Yeah, but that also is the part that doesn't make much sense," the former minion said sighing. "TyranoGazimon was right about me spending most of my time reading whatever documents I could find on the system. Things about the human world, reports from other dark powers, guidebooks, and on the rare times I could find them original records from the system Datamon turned into the Dark Network." He looked seriously at his teammates. "A more proper name for the human children is the 'Chosen Children', and from the scattered bits I found they are important because the good guys back then literally chose them for the task."

"Not destiny as in prophecy, but as in having things setup ahead of time to help with dealing with known problems that would happen," Shawn cursed. "Why does that make a clone not make sense?"

"Because Datamon's the one who messed with that orginal system. He should know that their digimon partners were made specifically for the human kids to evolve," Youkomon clarified. "So there is no reason he would clone the digimon when he had the kid right there to copy instead and get whatever power they had to evolve digimon."

"The Biyomon did evolve digimon though. She only had Crabs when she went to the computer core, but we fought Goliath," Serperior noted thoughtfully. "Unless... They made the partner digimon specifically for the humans?"

"That is what the records I found said. Old stuff from when the original network was connected up to Myotismon's castle, which he built over the lab they made them in," the fox digimon confirmed.

"Then maybe it is like mega evolution, and they needed to be as compatible as possible in order for it to work," the snake pokemon said looking at his trainer a touch worried. "Which might have ended up like trying to clone Shawn now, instead of getting the human you get the monster."

\---

MASTER DATAMON seemed content with the results of the attack, and the Upload people all managed to get out okay, so HackBiyomon was left to think about what had just happened as the group worked out the results of the fight. "They had a Gazimon with them," she sighed shaking her head.

"Yeah, I guess you'd be used to those guys. I'm still a bit worried they're going to find more of them, or something else worse like whatever they did to that Salamence to let it control minds," Alice attempted to agree.

"Wait, Gazimon aren't that tough," the digital bird could not help but say. "If they can evolve like that one they are a threat, but they weren't that tough back in the digital world. Even a human from my world would have a chance against them."

"Huh, snake eyes must have trained the one we are up against well," one of the other trainers said making her look up confused. "Did we save that video of him?"

Minutes later HackBiyomon regretted that they did. "That was not a Gazimon," she said with a hint of fear. "I do not know what it is, but all of the Gazimon I can remember would have been crushed by that dragon." It had three heads and loomed over the battlefield, and yet the thing that looked like a Gazimon managed to win against it without even using his own terrifying dragon form. "They weren't anything like that in the-" she cut off as her train of thought stumbled into one of the holes in her memories she had felt before. "The village, the village of- It was taken over by Pagumon and Gazimon, but it was supposed to be for- The digimon Agumon was before," she tried again and again failing each time to remember. "They look like, they look like- Round, but most In Training were round." She shook her head upset with only managing that minor fact.

Absol had looked up at her sharply as soon as she hit the forgotten digimon, and was now looking at her with a hint of fright. "Are you okay?" he asked padding over.

"There are gaps in my memories," she managed to say, suddenly far more aware of why her MASTER would hate Etemon so much for this kind of injury. "I think because of what did this to me." She motioned to her digimon form.

"Huh, does Datamon have any ways to help fix that?" Bob asked, and HackBiyomon suddenly found that knowing the answer seemed far more important than NOT INTERRUPTING HER MASTER. "Go ahead and ask, maybe some of it is important," the tech suggested noticing her thoughts.

She half flew back to the still growing lab and arrived to find her MASTER totally focused on a number of cobbled together screens. "Is there a problem HackBiyomon?" he asked with some annoyance that WAS HER FAULT without stopping his work. "I had thought you were relatively unharmed by the conflict, well within our allies ability to repair."

"There are holes in my memories, Master. They suggested that you might know of a way of restoring them," she said blandly, the rush of energy GONE with his presence.

"Hmm, How did that come up?" MASTER DATAMON asked her looking up and frowning deeper.

"I was not able to remember what kind of digimon lived in the village taken over by Gazimon. There is something that looks like a Gazimon working for our enemies and I wanted to explain why it wasn't one," she told him BEING AS CLEAR AS SHE COULD. "Can you help with recovering them Master?"

"That information does not seem too valuable given our current situation," he responded blandly. "Have you encountered any other memory issues that have actually interfered with your new duties?"

"No Master," she said with a dull horror creeping into her thoughts.

"Then I don't see why it is a major concern," her utter hypocrite of a MASTER said waving his hand. "If any more do result in problems we can deal with them on a case by case basis."

HackBiyomon then felt as if she was on the edge of a cliff. There was a question she suddenly desperately wanted to ask him, one that she knew would result in her death regardless of anything else. No matter how much trouble simply killing her would cause him, the question would be much too far.

'Is that what Etemon said to you when you lost your memories?' she did not ask. "I will see if there is anything I can help the others with," she said aloud turning to not look at his response, and when no reply came she walked out shaking slightly.

"I'm glad you didn't ask," Absol said suddenly from beside her. The white canine' fur was fluffed looking, as if he had spent the entire time after she had left worrying.

"I did ask about fixing my memories," she informed him slowly, the timing of the statement striking her as oddly specific.

"Hmm, do me a favor and scan me with your new Pokedex," he said, visibly calming. Cautiously she picked it up from where it was dangling from the chain and opened it to point at the monster.

"Sense disasters?" she read from the brief description of his kind. Then she realized the point of the question, and the way he had been in just the right place to save her after the failed reactivation. "You knew this would happen?"

"I have focused my ability to let me see disasters that I benefit from at the expense of being caught off guard by those that cannot help me," Absol once more bluntly told her, and suddenly that brutal honesty seemed less sincere. "If I intervened again Datamon would trust me less, and you would never trust me again." There was a strange waver in his voice from the second part of the statement. "However, if I did nothing then it seemed equally likely that you either never appear in a disaster I sensed again, or we would be speaking now."

She realized this meant he could see the cliff she had just been standing on. "And you care about that?" she asked trying again to fall into the dull robotic tone that was once the only way she could speak.

"Right now there are only two Hackware hybrids in existence," he replied failing to keep his tone level and looking genuinely embarrassed by the result. She was reminded of Alice's warning about Hackware survival before the attack.

"You want to have a friend," she realized aloud, confused by the canine's apparent desire. She then found herself laughing. "I'm made to be a villain's puppet, the good guys have a Gazimon of all digimon, and you are a thief that just wants to have friends," she laughed at the joke that was her existence.

"Okay, this is somehow making your death less likely, but I have no idea how," Absol replied utterly confused. "It is nice to see a bit less of the mind control," he continued attempting to improve the mood.

"Master is not going to like that," she told him as blunt as he typically was with her. "He'll find out and I don't want to know what he will do to fix it."

"Well, maybe seeing what he wants out of an assistant is part of why I'm keeping you alive then," the monster replied as his red crystal like body parts flashed. "To know what he really wants from the rest of us." He then looked away. "Still, I have few enough people I trust, and from what I have seen it is more than worth it to trust you."

She looked down at the red piece of alien electronics around her neck, the screen still displaying the information on what an Absol was with a note about his added Ghost type. "My Master does not know what you can do," she said looking up at him seriously.

"Really?" he questioned deliberately misunderstanding. "It is such a simple thing to look up, given it is the most basic fact about my species. He would have to not believe the entries, or not care enough to read them, in order to be confused about that."

"And wouldn't that just be a disaster," HackBiyomon noted.


	40. 2-16 Improvements

\--- Improvements ---

"So, let me see if I understand this mess," TyranoGazimon said reading over type information as the three teams with digimon members assembled in Box 201. The documents were intended to help the two newly revived former Gazimon decide on any changes to be made to them. "Datamon has a Biyomon of some kind, probably modified to work with these Hackware things, that you think is actually a clone of one of the human kids that Etemon wanted dead so badly."

"You have to admit it explains why Datamon grabbed the girl after those kids let him out," Monochromon rumbled calmly. "Not to mention why the rest of them decided to siege the pyramid to get them out. Still doesn't really explain why you think a clone turned into a digimon though."

"Because the partners might have been clones themselves," Gazimon said looking towards Delta 2. "I wish I had more data to go on for that but-"

"Six cases," the Porygon-2 bluntly told him before he could finish. "Seven if I include Shawn and Serperior despite there not being a known mega stone for their species. At least one has been confirmed to have been deliberately calibrated by a Legendary pokemon in order to have someone around to fix an issue they saw coming. So one known pair of chosen ones, and six cases of seeming happenstance where the human and pokemon both had near identical energy signatures. Two or three who have a known pokemon form matching their partner."

"Wait, so the energy thing isn't because of relatives?" Shawn asked excitedly.

"One of the known cases was determined to be a close relation," the polygonal Chansey said bluntly. "Well, actually it turned out to be a twin brother adopted by humans after a series of events I'm a little unclear on." Seeing the blank and concerned looks of the trainer and starter she continued. "Yes, I have confirmed as much as I am able that it isn't the same case with you two. That's honestly why I have this information at all."

"Wait, you know about a human that used to be a monster?" TyranoGazimon asked tilting her head.

"It is not an unheard of situation," Serperior noted in a way that said it nearly was. "Technically it is a state I have found myself in due to some complications regarding a body swap. Not to mention that Grant is actually, seriously, an ancient pokemon reincarnated into a human who got lucky enough to turn back into his old form."

"Really lucky!" the Armaldo agreed easily, causing most of his team to sigh. "I looked into that one case I think. He didn't even find being human worse than being his birth form, which I can't really imagine properly."

"We are sure Grant didn't just have a particularly bad human body before, right?" Kabutops asked sounding a bit boggled by his own question. "I mean, I don't exactly want to try switching with another human anytime soon, but given he evolved it does seem more like an option now."

"Given that I missed my own evolution it is more than possible, but not a concern at the moment," Delta 2 said tiredly. "Although I guess messing with the basic makeup of two or three other monsters isn't that much better of a topic."

"I'm still not interested in getting one of these 'types' you all have," Tyranomon replied to the implied question. "All that I've seen indicates it drove Gazimon as battle mad as most of the locals of this world."

"Can't entirely argue on that one, you aren't taking to training like I did," the typed digimon admitted. "I mean, I'm regularly getting into fights with a Champion level opponent now."

"I'm kinda hoping we reach the point where you don't need to evolve to go all out in them," Serperior said smiling darkly at the two former Gazimon, then laughing when it caused the two of them to flinch.

"So, I have to keep worrying about a Gazimon being able to kick my ass even if this makes me stronger?" Monochromon rumbled uncertainly, clearly remembering the snake pokemon's own fights before her match against the rabbit monster. "Yeah, if that's the kind of improvement we're talking about I'm all for it."

TyranoGazimon nodded in agreement shifting to a smug smile that revealed a slightly mismatched set of teeth. "Yeah, let's hear our options on these things."

"The option I'm giving you is Fire/Psychic," Delta 2 bluntly told her new assistant.

"Wait, what about Dark?" Gazimon asked confused. "She isn't that much different from me now, is she?"

"Honestly, she is. Actually, TyranoGazimon is probably best suited to a pure Fire type, the shift in her coloration is indicative of major internal changes to her body structure to accept the grafted components," the local Administrator explained. "Psychic on the other hand is the type for intelligence, and with her mindset and position as my assistant the side effects of getting that type should be beneficial."

"So it will make me smarter?" the chimera questioned greedily. "And able to breathe fire too?" She laughed darkly and attempted to mime huffing out flames, only to scramble shocked as a puff of orange flames emerged from her mouth.

"You're probably about half my species now," Tyranomon dully noted. "It is a thing we can do."

"Well if we've got her figured out what about me?" Monochromon said smirking at the fumbling digimon. "I know you guys are saying something about Steel, but apparently you can get two of these things?"

"Depends on what you want really," Jack answered his newest teammate. "Pure Steel isn't too bad, only weak to Fighting, Ground, and Fire with a resistance to half of the remaining types," he told her as if reading off a card.

"Maximum defensive ability," she easily replied. "Gazimon as a rule are fragile things our bosses like to see in pain, and I'm in the mood to never be afraid to take a hit again."

"She is definitely a Steel type," Quagsire said shaking her head. "Let's try and cover those weaknesses then, what resists Fighting?"

"Not much, Flying isn't the safest option, Psychic would add two more weaknesses, and I seriously doubt Jack wants another Ghost even if that is an immunity," Shawn told her shrugging. "That just leaves Poison, Bug, and Fairy. Poison shares a few resistances, which stack, but it also shares a vulnerability to Ground typed attacks. Bug has a similar problem to Flying in that she isn't shaped for it, but then her only weakness would be double weak to Fire. Fairy is also resistant to Dark types, but they tend to be a bit stranger than normal pokemon so it might come with some noticeable mental shift."

Quagsire and Jack's teams both stared at the trainer after this short speech. "You can do type combinations in your head?" Jack asked while the original Troubleshooter team looked confused by the others' shock. "I doubt many League level trainers can manage that."

"You just gave a speech about the Steel type," Shawn said looking at his former rival like the trainer had gone mad.

"I had a Steel type pokemon before, and was getting ready for helping her get it as a new one. You just went over everything for a bunch of types you don't even have," the other trainer complained.

"We kinda have to worry about that kind of thing a lot more around here," Serperior said slowly while beginning to understand the point. "Anyway, for the Fighting type it really is just Poison that is an option for improved defenses. Ground isn't much better, only three types have any sort of resistance and two of them are Flying and Bug which we already know isn't workable because they don't fit the shape of her body."

"Which leaves only the Grass type, and we just stopped having an all Grass team a little bit ago," Vibration said attempting to lean back on a wall, but going too far and instead phasing through it with a yelp.

"So all that's left to check is Fire," Delta 2 said walking over to check on the Flygon as he rushed back into the room.

"Rock is what a Lairon has naturally, but shares both the Fighting and Ground weaknesses, so it makes those problems worse," Shawn picked up from his starter. "After that there is Fire, Water, and Dragon."

"Wait, I can decide to be a dramon?" Monochromon asked blinking. "That's just an option we have here?"

"Honestly given how much I like my own dragon flames it kinda appeals to me too," Gazimon said then deliberately huffed out a short puff of purple fire. "But, the Goliath we're fighting are Steel types themselves, so they can resist that kind of thing."

"The Fire type covers one weakness and gives the advantage to you over those as well," Delta 2 noted opening a pink pane. "You also seem to be capable of breathing fire already to some extent, so it isn't a major modification to make compared to some of the others."

"Monochromon can breathe fire?" the new member of that species asked turning to look at the various locals. "Why is this even a question then?"

"Actually a whole lot of pokemon can learn to do that," Vibration said moving to land on her back. "Shelly was planning to use the TM for Flamethrower when she evolved into an Aggron." He then blinked and briefly glanced at Tyranomon before looking back to his new teammate. "Oh! I forgot that you guys aren't actually used to having moves. You don't need to be a particular type to learn a move, it just makes them easier to use and stronger."

"It can also make it so you have trouble with or even can't use moves of another type," Shawn commented. "I know just about everything I need to use Blaze Kick, but I'm enough of a Grass type that actually trying is going to damage me more than anyone I manage to hit with it."

TyranoGazimon looked up in surprise at these statements. "Okay, alright, I just figured out why you have an attack analysis/modification system just sitting around in a medical facility," she said waving an arm to a fairly typical machine for a major city's pokemon center. "You guys all use a standard set of attacks that you can just mix and match with a bit of compatibility, don't you?"

"Um, well we only learn certain moves normally," Grant told the digimon. "And moves don't have to be attacks. Oh, and the standard versions are mostly just how things are packaged in TMs, most pokemon naturally just learn to manipulate their energy in a way that causes a similar effect." The fossil pokemon nodded happily. "TMs are much nicer then what I had to do in my last life. I'm not even sure if eating an enemy who knew what you wanted to learn worked."

"Well, I fully regret my trainer remembering more of his past life," Kabutops complained as everyone else looked uneasily at the Armaldo. "Not that he's wrong about the parts that aren't eating pokemon."

"Can't rule out the eating thing," TyranoGazimon and Delta 2 both said together, the former sarcastically and the latter exasperated. "Some pokemon can learn energy manipulation from eating a lot of other pokemon that have a different type," the Administrator continued while the digimon groaned and buried her face in her hands. "There are some known pokemon that have their own movesets because of this, or that developed their own types as a result of their species' typical diet."

"I could have lived my entire life without needing to wonder if my trainer learned Water Gun from eating my relatives," Kabutops said shaking his head and then returning himself.

"Right, maybe we should finish this up before I need to send Grant back to his ball too," Quagsire grumbled to the group. "Can't she just take pure Steel type then decide on more later?"

\---

"We cannot afford to have more raids like that one," Bob complained looking at the far smaller collection of Champion Hackware. The humans and digimon had gathered together to look over the forces remaining after the attack. "They managed to capture the Shrine and take out four Goliath. We have the power available to replace them given time, but we don't have enough other resources to keep going without making raids."

"Which puts us at risk every time, and they are only getting stronger," Alice continued tapping on her computer. After a moment an image of a blue and red dragon with large polygonal domes on its back appeared. "Including in ways we weren't expecting."

"This is Investigator Robert's Salamence, correct?" Anderson asked, getting a firm nod. "Are the digital components something she is wearing, or a part of her body?"

"Those aren't just part of her body, she can use them to make little dome shaped things that take over whoever they latch onto," Bob angrily replied. "That's how they caught the Shrine, they took it over and instead of making barriers to protect us it started supporting them and splitting up our forces. Not to mention creating confusion by having Hackware fighting Hackware."

This made both the developer and machine digimon look up sharply at the domes. "That is a considerably different situation," Anderson said darkly. "She was already more than capable of threatening our Champion forces with just her own combat abilities. The Serperior's use of Acid Armor and his trainer's ability to preform moves give evidence that they are actively making these changes."

"She's registering as a Vaccine attribute," Datamon said dully. "That provides a notable offensive and defensive advantage over our Virals."

"That stuff is a type?" Absol shouted looking with wide eyes at the digimon. "Oh shit, we're in trouble. The Gazimon is a Dark type, and I know we can add types. If that is like an extra type, they can just give it to all of their pokemon. We need to have another advantage to make up for this."

"The biggest problem is they can track the world conversion process and force us to fight every time we raid a place," Alice told the group. "I've looked into these new records and found out the how, making a digital world apparently changes the power and memory usage of the physical system we hit. All they need to do is monitor that on any vulnerable sites, and when they see the power use increase despite memory use going down they know we're going there." She turned to look at Datamon. "I think if we use a mix of the Gazimon data fragments and some of the Dark Network code itself in a Worm evolution we might be able to improve their stealth capacity to help deal with this issue, maybe with some of the Tyranomon remains for some improved combat capacity."

There was a moment of silence while everyone processed that statement. "I thought we were keeping quiet about that part of the upgrades?" one of the grunts complained with a grumble while the machine digimon looked on with complete shock at the statement. "Or was that just to keep Thomas out of the loop?"

"And to stop our enemies from realizing what our source was, but if they are doing that kind of thing to their own pokemon we can't assume they haven't noticed it yet," the tech replied shaking her head. "We can probably get a bit better performance with a more direct application. Sorry Datamon," she added causing the digimon to force his face into a blank look. "But we need the improvements that going a bit farther than before will provide."

HackBiyomon looked over at Datamon with a blank face that told the others she was heavily under the influence of his control. "I had not heard about this yet, Master," she said with a dull voice making Absol look away from her. "Could you explain?"

"It is merely a shortcut in producing a new final form for the Hackware," Anderson said before the machine digimon could fully process the question. "For the initial few individuals we evolve we are including some of the code remnants of the digimon that were within the Dark Network portions we captured from DSS. Moving them here damaged the data badly, and Datamon has indicated that they are not recoverable in their natural states. We only need to do this with a small portion of the remains, far less than would be in a single digimon, before metaphysical inertia takes over and other Rookie Hackware can make use of the evolution without any need for intervention."

"Metaphysics?" the machine digimon asked blinking. "I had thought you were using the upgrade packages I had produced."

"We are going to, they cut down on the experience needed to evolve the Crabs and Stones, but we are saving them now just in case we need a lot of the Champion forms all at once," Alice said calmly. "Right now that is our best hope of having the chance to escape again."

"I have some concept notes for the Worm evolution ready, perhaps we can perform a rapid development now and produce some to raid a location before our enemy's estimates indicate we would be ready for another attack?" the Hackware developer asked motioning to the lab. "Absol is more than capable of leading their kind on independent missions, and we have a surplus of that species available." He then led Datamon away from the group.

"We weren't supposed to know about that," HackBiyomon accused the group once they were out of earshot, sounding far more animated. "Master was lying to all of us about how he was making the Champion Hackware, and you knew the truth but pretended not to have figured it out."

"He's really bad at figuring out that there are smart people out there other than him," Alice complained. "You know what he's still thinking of the fact that the Gazimon can access the Dark Network. We are up against people with at least as much experience with this kind of stuff, and all sorts of resources we are still needing to try and patch together from the stuff we brought or manage to steal."

"He beat that dragon thing," the bird digimon countered with no real belief. "That does mean he's a combat monster." Her argument was the main one Datamon had been providing.

"He used tricks to win a Gym match," Bob said shaking his head. "That wasn't a strong fight, it was a smart one. Normally? The trainer tells the pokemon when to do just about everything. Snake eyes barely speaks, which means his pokemon are at least as smart as the average trainer too."

"However, there is no easy path to making Datamon realize this fault," Absol cut in sourly. "He controls what we have of the Dark Network, and unfortunately doubting him properly to his face does not actually help in the short or long term. I'm still looking for a disaster that can fix that problem, but we should be prepared for that to fail."

"A disaster to fix it?" HackBiyomon asked with sarcasm.

"Well, I can't really see anything else," the other Dark type replied smiling at the banter. "Not to mention any attempt to tell him something he doesn't like is always a disaster."

\---

TyranoGazimon looked at everyone present, feeling unusual sensations from most of them and an oddly increased understanding of things in general. "Okay, feels worth noting but I can't get any psychic stuff from the digger," she told Delta 2 while wiggling her reptilian claws to move around the sensation of not quite heat she could now much more clearly feel inside of them.

"Dark types are immune to Psychics typically," the Porygon-2 answered watching her closely. The group had decided to move forward with her transformation to Fire/Psychic typing, and the simple flash of light seemed to produce no physical change. "Depending on what you are able to learn to do using it I might end up looking into some of the ways around that. Psychic analysis and healing techniques would be very valuable."

"Salamence actually complained a lot about not being able to get a start into those," Jack noted while looking carefully at her for any changes. "Is it normal for nothing to happen?"

"Nothing happened to me," Gazimon said calmly, but she could spot one of his strange black windows floating just behind him with what seemed to be her data scrolling down its surface. "If it fits her well enough there shouldn't be much of anything."

"So am I going to get the ability to reshape digital life on a whim too?" she had to ask clacking the claws against each other, and once again scaring herself by producing actual flames instead of just mimicking a way she'd seen it done once before. "Can I ask that again, but a lot more seriously?" TyranoGazimon then had to correct herself given she still didn't even have a handle on the more mundane powers they had given her.

"He was body swapped with A-0, then sent through an emergency transport system while still switched, had to get a crash course in manipulating things using my sibling's body, and finally was returned to a body my sibling was using as much as he could after even more transports," Delta 2 said bluntly. "To put in perspective how much of a thing that was, another pokemon ended up learning how to liquefy their body from only the body swapping part of that."

"So having those abilities is something that is at minimum waiting for you to figure out all the ways you can easily light stuff on fire," Shawn said with far too much cheer for someone apparently more flammable than the average human. Although the documents the Administrator had made her read so far seemed to almost be saying that the average Gazimon was more flammable than what they called humans, and that did not seem quite right.

"Why do you always say 'sibling' instead of brother or something?" TyranoGazimon had to ask now that the topic was back again. "Isn't calling him an 'it' kinda rude?"

"Alpha Zero Box Null takes more pride in its status as a created thing than many of the rest of us do in our own selected genders," Delta 2 replied with fond exasperation. "Kind of like how it does not like any form but the one it started with. DSS Porygon have far more self modification in practice than is typical for our species, and even 'typical' is a large amount of change."

"Alpha 45 has told me I could probably learn Conversion," Gazimon added shrugging. "Especially since the evolution shift ability is apparently based on it to a degree. That is how just about any Porygon is able to swap their types at will."

"The more I hear about this world, the more I suspect it is the result of some madmon's attempt to make the ultimate combat monster," Monochromon grumbled with a hint of greed. "Entire teams of monsters assembled all the time to go in great big tournaments everywhere."

Two mostly human trainers and a whole lot of pokemon that had participated in such tournaments all looked at her with a mix of confusion and pity that TyranoGazimon found very strange. It was one thing for people to be mostly accepting of the other former Gazimon's joy in combat, but this was more like finding a world where such enjoyment was typical. As if they were trying to image being somewhere you couldn't just go outside and find someone to fight, and finding the idea terrible. "We might have to see about a smaller one when this is all done," Jack said to her empathetically. "Just to give you an idea what normal battling is like."

"I'm going to hold you to that one," the metal armored digimon laughed. "Right, I'm going with just the Steel for now. The other stuff sounds nice, but it also sounds like I can try out some of this stuff without actually being one of them too." 'It would also give her more time to check out actual examples of the type and watch TyranoGazimon figure her stuff out,' she then thought in a way that felt particularly loud.

"Uh, what was that last part?" TyranoGazimon asked suddenly feeling a bit woozy, with Delta 2 catching her before she could fall.

"No mental talking before I go over that!" the medical pokemon said walking over and hitting the larger digimon lightly. "We do have some internal changes here she needs to adapt to, and Psychic powers can be hazardous to their users."

"All powers can be dangerous to their users," Serperior said looking directly at Shawn, who simply smiled at the pokemon. "And everyone learning to use them should be careful about how they go about learning to use them," the snake complained.

\---

The result of the rapid development session was once again a more developed version of the Hackware's Rookie form. The small Worms had expanded outward into a massive thick snake like form, and its two dimensional claws had like wise filled out into fully three dimensional structures. Unlike the other two Champion forms the head of this creature had altered to open along a central line, revealing an almost reptilian polygonal mouth filled with sharp pointed triangles clearly acting as teeth.

"Ghost/Fire typed?" Absol asked as the new Hackware let out a low rumble to acknowledge his presence. "I think in that case we have to go with Wyrm," he continued with a sharp smile.

"They are not quite advanced enough in their direct data manipulation to be able to generate digital worlds on their own, but they should be able to mask the creation process if they act in concert with the Shrine performing that task," Anderson said proudly looking over the three examples made so far. "The capabilities are good enough to take others with them using their own travel methods, however initial readings indicate that non-Ghost types might interfere with the masking attempts."

"I hope that doesn't include the security systems that are produced when we make the worlds too," Alice complained looking over the serpentine Hackware. "Otherwise we'd need to somehow clear them out as they're being made."

"It does not, the masking program will account for all digimon that form inside the target location," Datamon confirmed somewhat distracted with a printout. "I have a possible target as well that will make good use of the improvements to their transport capacity. An electronics manufacturing facility that has a number of naturally occurring worlds closely associated with it, no doubt indicating that their results are quite advanced."

"There is a reason we avoid those," Bob said nervously. "The last time we went after one of them with that kind of side effects we ran into a Champion security program. Are these guys going to be enough to deal with any we encounter?"

"I can lead two of these guys and some Worms through without much trouble," Absol replied confidently nodding. "The original can stay back and make sure the mask is working right with the Shrines."

"If there are already digital worlds around there why can't we just use those for something?" HackBiyomon asked cautiously. "You guys said all of them have their own power, couldn't we use them?"

"With more resources I could expand the Dark Network to those locations and hopefully mask them," Datamon said thoughtfully. "However, we still require those resources first. My goal is to recover assembly machines from this target to use to supply ourselves. That way there will be less need to raid."

"Not to mention they are known digital worlds," Alice said sounding less than convinced. "We went out of our way to find one not on our earlier database raids when we setup in this one to avoid being tracked that way. You basically never find anything worthwhile inside one when you first find it, and if it is known then either a lab with a transport system has already taken anything out of it or the owners of the related system are actually using it."

"Transport systems are quite rare, but the labs that do have them investigate every location they can find," Anderson confirmed sadly. "So this does appear to be a solid plan for improving our situation. Absol, prepare a team."

\---

Much like the previous two digimon to gain a type that mostly matched them, Monochromon did not physically change as her body became a Steel type. She would have been fine with it if she had, this wasn't her original body after all and it wasn't quite feeling like it was really hers yet. Which was something she remembered taking a few days after she first evolved into a Gazimon too, so the sensation was familiar enough to deal with.

"Right, with that out of the way next is sending you two over to my sister, Alpha 45, to get analyzed for what moves you can learn," Delta 2 told them calmly.

"What do we have already?" Monochromon had to ask trying to feel for any differences. "Or is she the one who can check that for us?" This didn't seem likely given TyranoGazimon pointing out the machine for that kind of thing, but the world they found themselves in was weird enough for it to be a thing.

"I think its more that she has the experience with trying to teach pokemon that don't normally learn moves how to do them," Vibration said, and it was actually kind of strange that she was just going to understand him from now on after such a simple change. The idea of being on a team of fighters was still exciting, and having a leader that had been to the big tournament was clearly something to be proud of given how it was used as a compliment to the other 'trainer'.

"That's part of it, but a bigger one is that she has her sensors tuned to moves. I would miss some of the details or even give inaccurate information," the local Administrator told them. "Not to mention that right now she's the only one who can try and work with the attributes of your attacks. Gazimon is enough of a pokemon now to have some be different than his natural Viral, but I can't tell how much time and work you two will need to reach that point."

"This is the land of terrifying yet wonderful opportunity," TyranoGazimon said with starstruck eyes.

"So, you're saying that even though I'm a Data attribute now, I could get some attacks that work like a Vaccine or Viral used them?" Monochromon asked seriously considering the possibility. "And that's on top of these other attacks and such she might have for me to be able to do?"

"Most Steel type attacks should be really easy for you to learn actually. The general principle is that you harden the part of your body you are attacking with," Shawn's Serperior said lifting the end of his tail in the air, where it began to glow white. "And then hit your target with it." The floor at his target area cracked loudly as he did just that, earning a dark look from Delta 2. "Either blunt force where the energy protects your body from what is normally dangerous things to hit that hard, or in the case of Metal Claw using the power to sharpen and reinforce your claws to cut more easily through targets."

"So, maximum defensive capabilities," she replied smiling widely. "Alright, let's go see how easily I can learn that stuff."


	41. 2-17 Side Effects

\--- Side Effects ---

Absol phased through one of the cavern walls with some annoyance to dodge yet another large iguana shaped reptile patrolling the mine that had resulted from the conversion process. His Wyrms and Worms were both closely following doing their best to keep out of sight in the thick digital stone that made up the majority of the world. So far the original plan was not going well, as it turned out that not only had the company moved their parts out of digital storage, but the world itself had become a strange mining site where smaller reptiles dug out bits of electronics while the large combat focused ones watched carefully for any attackers. The only devices that they had found so far were taking those fragments of technology and somehow turning them into more of the reptiles and mining gear, albeit not at a very rapid rate and seemingly only to fill the currently rather barren tunnels.

"Datamon, can you use these guys for anything?" he asked quietly over the limited communication line they still had access to with the mask up and running.

"Champions and Rookies are both Data, so not overly dangerous to fight for your group," was the static filled reply. "If you have a way of getting either examples to us alive that would be helpful for me to determine if they are worth the risk of capture."

"Not worth it from my own scans," Anderson countered. "Those devices that produce them are the best prizes remaining, but even then they would require more rework than is strictly worth the end result. This world is sustaining them with its electronics ore deposits, but we are not going to find more elsewhere easily enough to properly reproduce them. Focus instead on any data archives you can locate and their own resource storage areas. The mined materials will be a good backup option for us."

"I'll see if I can find anything else," Absol replied as the machine digimon huffed. Shaking his head he slipped back into the tunnel to try once more to reach the main caverns the creatures were coming from. Unhappy hissing briefly came from the two Wyrms, the Hackware angry at the lack of progress and archives to steal from. "Let's try this way." He quickly dashed forward a short distance and felt for any problems.

The issue was that there weren't many things he could actually get from the digital world. He could find a couple of paths to disastrous fights in either the main data storage or electronics storage locations, but the best results also had the fewest survivors among his own forces by the time the disaster he could actually use for something arrived. The smaller temporary storage areas or secondary backup systems for data would give fights that were much easier to win, but with far less to show for it as well.

Worst of all he could only actually see cases where stealth failed the group. While the big storage centers were apparently past security too tight to avoid from how they could only be disasters with losses already present, the smaller sites had chances for the disaster to be them having been first discovered while taking what they could. So his best bet was to find and take from the least protected locations without any combat at all, but if there were any that were so unprotected that they were easy to raid, then he couldn't actually see them due to it not ending in disaster.

"We don't have time for this," he complained out loud, getting hisses of agreement. The biggest disaster was the eventual fall of the masking program, which would definitely occur and result in DSS arriving and organizing the local defenders far too effectively.

"Locate map," the very slightly older Wyrm noted in the communication method common to only Hackware, rather than the actual speech of the Shrines. It was a solid idea, but the best result Absol could find was literally pulling the knowledge out of one of the mining reptiles.

"Right, a local drop point then," he agreed with the serpent and began leading the group deeper down the path. They needed to jump into the walls three more times before falling in carefully a good distance behind a small group carrying newly excavated circuit boards and wires. Then the group of Hackware had to carefully maneuver to look out of the stone while not being spotted by a cluster of five Champions guarding a set of sorting bins and one of the construction machines.

"Dangerous," the other Wyrm noted, and it took a horrifying moment for Absol to realize what it might have meant. He could sense that if they allowed the four construction machines to remain functional then these creatures would eventually find their own way out of this world. The resulting disaster when they began striking out to attack other sources of electronics was just barely bad enough for him to identify even though it did not provide any benefit to himself. Destroying even just one of them would remove that risk, likely by prompting a closer investigation by the DSS forces to spot the issue themselves.

It would not help him at all. No one would realize his reason for the act if he took it, and Upload's problems would be resolved one way or another by the time the problem actually occurred. There was no benefit to him in the long term to destroy this particular machine. However, he was an Absol, and no matter how much he hated the fear and suspicion cast upon his kind for their prophecy, he knew that he would not be able to look himself in the eyes again if he simply allowed a disaster like this pass unresolved.

"Maybe it will help with Biyo," he tried to justify to himself quietly, even though he didn't even consider actually explaining the reasoning behind his next action. "Right, you three Worms go cause a distraction. The rest of you prepare to grab what data and resources you can, destroy anything we can't take. Make sure the machine doesn't survive and be ready to leave when we're done."

The three smaller Hackware decided to go down two different attached tunnels, and soon after he could spot two of the five defenders break off to go after them. The other guards gathered closer to the equipment for a moment, then sent one off with all of the smaller digital life forms. Waiting just a moment to allow them enough distance to justifiably escape instead of return, without giving too much time for the others to deal with the distracting Worms, he jumped forward to face the remaining two alongside his own Wyrms.

The three of them were already attacking, Absol with claws coated in Hackware red energy, and the Wyrms with flames of that same unnatural flat color. The Dark type claw attack seemed to do better against the surprisingly stony body of the creatures than the Fire typed flames, but the difference in power between himself and his Hackware made their own strikes more effective. The Worms added their own typeless bolts of energy towards both targets, overwhelming and shattering one of the two into a short lived pile of rocky scales and circuits. The other struck back with a slash of its claws at the Wyrm that had attacked it, and a tail swipe at the nearby Rookie Hackware.

Both of the Hackware survived the counter, the Wyrm moving one of its own claws to intercept and the smaller digital life form sliding into the cavern floor easily. Immediately afterward Absol drove his claws into the remaining foe, causing its arm to crack loudly and fall off exposing circuitry below. The Wyrm took advantage of this new weakness to finish it off while the other Hackware started gathering the resources present and destroying anything they didn't find valuable. The two Champions both slithered around the construction machine, and dug their claws into the device targeting valuable internal components for removal.

As they damaged the machine a tone sounded out across the mines. Absol could sense the sudden destruction of two of the three distracting Worms and could clearly see the paths shift to various ways of dealing with just about every enemy in the system. "Ah yes, of course. This one definitely has no upside," he complained as the herd of smaller reptiles rushed back into the chamber alongside their Champion escort. The two Wyrms sent out a combined wave of flame that rapidly turned the scales of the miners dry and cracked, resulting in the weaker enemies slowing down considerably to prevent their outer shells from crumbling to expose their internal components.

Absol checked the paths more closely, as this deep into even an unseen disaster his ability to find at least combat viable advantages was far better. Strangely all of the paths felt slightly off, as if he was missing some major change that had already happened but wasn't yet clear. There seemed to be no problem with his initial plan to slash at the largest lizard monster, and the red energy once again broke through the charred scales. Seeing a quick victory he ducked under the clumsy response to strike again as another wave of flames finished most of the miners off.

A strange sensation came over the pokemon-Hackware hybrid in the small break in the fight that followed. It felt familiar to him, but that familiarity was not from his own memories. The Worm that had been fused with him had not been very intelligent or long lived, but even it had possessed memories that were still present within Absol himself. From these he could recognize a sensation that as a single stage pokemon he never expected to experience, the building energy of a coming evolution. Looking between the two newly evolved Wyrms with a wide smile, he embraced that power.

At first he could feel his body growing larger and his forepaws shifting slightly to become able to move more dexterously. Then there was the sensation of two new limbs emerging from his back and shifting around while a second horn grew out of the left side of his head, clearly mirroring the first. Blinking as the changes ended he started to take a moment to look over his changes, only to be interrupted by one of the Wyrms sending him a recording of what they were seeing.

Absol's body had grown in scale, but his limbs were still thin and agile looking. His legs were changed somewhat at both the front and back of his body, and nervously he lifted himself into a bipedal stance. Standing up was strangely easy, and allowed him to see how his forelimbs could now function as arms with usable hands in addition to their normal stance. Behind him a pair of crystal-like wings emerged from his back, each made of three of the claws along his Wyrm's bodies. The final thing of note was his fur being slightly longer overall, giving him a fluffier but more ragged appearance.

"It seems I'm joining you two as a Champion," he said laughing a touch nervously now that the extent of his changes hit him. "Smash the machine and get ready to run, we don't have time to take them all out." The two other iguana like reptiles that had been distracted before now entered the cavern again, one chasing the Worm that had survived distracting them so far. Exasperated by the continued conflict he huffed strongly, producing his own burst of the unnaturally red flames. "Might as well see what I can do."

\---

Gazimon did not like the latest target at all. "What was this 'trap' they planned on catching Upload in again?" he asked his team angrily while going over the Dark Network Node partially embedded in the cavern wall.

"Their plan was to have faked this place to still be full of their data and equipment while leaving behind a 'security system' to take Upload out when they got here," Shawn said caustically. He looked at a passing lizard monster and judged how close the creatures were to them critically. "Honestly they look more like a particularly cleaned up system destruction virus to me. They're acting like the worst kinds of corruption we've encountered, and a bit too desperate to get a replacement for that creation device they lost to the Hackware."

"We have 20 of the big ones left," A-0 carefully said focusing entirely on the black metallic box. "Do we have enough forces to deal with that?"

"They've let us take one of the three remaining fabricators out of the system for analysis," Serperior said sitting in a puddle of himself, a state that was telling everyone familiar with the pokemon that he was ready for a fight. "That just leaves two more, the one just over there and the one Roberts and Jack are looking over."

"Yeah, I got that part," the digimon complained twitching his claws towards the Viral Tetrahedron hanging around his neck. "Its the faking the stuff being here that I'm missing. Last place they hit ended up with a whole new capability from being changed, and the one before it had things that didn't even exist before that they were actually after. So would that part have even worked with this stuff?"

"They copied the data for the stuff when they took it out and left just that in the system," A-0 informed him. "Without the energy that makes up the items they ended up as sort of stable illusions. You can find a few in the really big chambers around their supply areas. The actual information that was here before was replaced with junk data that seems to be what made the veins of electronics these guys are mining."

"Initial analysis is complete guys," TyranoGazimon said over communication lines. The team tensed up at her voice, having expected Janice or Metagross to report on the device.

"What does it say, TG?" Serperior asked, then frowned unhappy with the attempted nickname.

"We are not using that one," the patchwork digimon replied unhappily. "The bad news is that it isn't that hard to make, you just need some parts that don't appear in the system to do that. The worse news is that it is unstable enough that the corruption references we're looking at say they might be able to spread to other digital worlds."

"We have a lot of Champion stage around here to deal with that kind of problem," Shawn said nervously switching his gaze to a pair of miner lizards slowly working at a wall. "Do we have a plan?"

"It isn't quite as bad as that sounds. I've figured out that the digger isn't exactly the best source of information on how we work, so I'll go over something. Not all Champion stage digimon are guaranteed to be tough. For example, Numemon are less an actual Champion form and more having failed to actually become a Champion," TyranoGazimon stated harshly. "These guys here are mass produced soldiers made out of junk parts. With a bit of work you could probably get them to the minimum for a real Champion, but right now they are only about a 50 on your 'level' scale. So more dangerous than any Rookie you'd see, but given the scans I've been looking at you could probably take one yourself, 'human'. That's our good news, the bad news is that they are also busted enough that they definitely don't care about any authorization codes. We can replace their machine, but as long as we make those for them we don't get attacked."

The various reptiles around them paused at the tone she used for the last part, which implied a lack of replacements for their construction units, and all turned angrily at them. The largest quickly took stock of their relative strengths, and then moved to attack Shawn. The trainer moved back slightly to allow Serperior to respond more effectively, but not without also slashing it with his own Leaf Blade attack. There was a sharp sound as the Grass type attack went through the target, sending it stumbling with a large gash across its front. "Huh, looks like your right Tyra," the trainer said lazily as his starter smashed the wounded creature apart with a furious attack.

"That one works," she replied tiredly. "I'll let the other team know things have gone to shit."

\---

Jack was on edge from the start of their latest trip to a targeted system. Strangle's uneasy shifting to keep the locals in sight was the main reason for his state, as despite the long time they had been separated he was still relying on her senses and instincts to clue him into any problems he had missed. His old rival's reaction to those locals only made that worse, as it basically meant that all three of the snake siblings were in agreement that these creatures were bad news.

"Strangle says that we can probably move a bit closer to that thing that makes them," Monochromon whispered uneasily from his other side while his Ghost types stuck closer to Roberts. The Investigator was still rather caught up in thinking about the new orders to destroy any enemies, and Jack was getting a bit worried that he had forgotten about the corruption that the Troubleshooters typically dealt with as a result.

"The shiny looking one is a Viral," Salamence hissed quietly as she walked past to reach the device to scan it better. "This thing is for making more of them right?" she then asked dubiously.

"That is the purpose it has been given," the shiny one said calmly, drawing attention as it was the first to actually speak rather than simply mime out what they were trying to say.

Vibration buzzed uncertainly, and Jack wasn't sure if he wanted to know what his Flygon was saying or not. Monochromon did not translate for him, instead moving closer to him. "Yes," Salamence responded carefully. "It has definitely been repurposed to make more of you." The dragon had been struggling a bit with learning to use her new abilities, but all of the digital life forms had agreed that she had a solid enough handle to do most of this kind of thing on their own. "I'm fairly sure I'm uniquely familiar with how you did it even."

This seemed to be what was needed to clue his boss in on what exactly they were looking at here. "You said you had a good amount of time before they actually arrived?" Roberts asked now tracking the three Champions in their section of the cavern while moving away from the larger group of Rookies.

The metallic probably-enemy had some slash marks that did not quite fit what Upload's creations did to their targets, and unfortunately seemed smart enough to know what was happening now. "Take the winged ones," it said to its inferior copies and then moved back to put them between itself and the pokemon. Angry hissing surrounded them for a moment before being cut off by a loud sparking sound as the LAS hybrid detonated some apparently hidden Analyzers to take out the fabricator.

"Hey, B team. Got some bad news," TyranoGazimon suddenly cut in using said dragon as a communicator. "We've managed to piss off the locals, so try and take out the builder machine and get out of there."

"Well we have worse news. It sounds like 'they' are actually this shiny guy trying to take over the place and we're the ones who pissed him off," Monochromon rumbled slashing her horn through a pair of the smaller apparently Rock typed creatures as they approached Jack. "The jellyfish-dragon took out the machine, but said something about it being like her somehow."

"I'm sending them a data packet on it, you don't need to insult me while using me as a phone," Salamence complained while sending gusts of wind to maneuver her drones closer to the nearby Champions. "We just need to make sure that one dies." She sounded strangely angry at the shiny reptile.

Growlithe growled with a sarcastic tone and the lack of understanding made Jack wonder if he might be better off with the risk of turning into a pokemon to not need translators anymore. "Monochromon, take out as many as you can. I'll stick with Strangle," he told his new teammate as said snake pokemon generated vines under as many of the foes as she could. "Also you need a name." He was a nicknaming trainer, and if she was staying she was getting one.

The armored digimon smiled as she rammed one of the larger reptiles with the glowing armor on her head. "How about 'Crusher'?" she asked laughing as it shattered between her and the cavern wall.

"Haven't used it yet and it matches the theme," Jack agreed happily, causing the Monochromon to stop for a moment to blink at him. "Now, let's take these guys out." Strangle simply laughed agreeably, and between that and the actual help with coming up with a name he definitely wanted to not need a translator anymore.

The shiny one then let out a screech of rage at something unseen, possibly Shawn's team taking out the last machine. "Destroy them all!" it cried out charging towards the two humans. One of its inferior copies got in the way immediately, an Analyzer clamped onto its back, and managed to only tangle it for a moment as the tough metal hide of the original easily shattered the weaker stone. "Useless garbage!"

"Quick update, we've taken down our machine and a lot of the little guys," Shawn confirmed while audibly grunting over the communication line. "Also a couple of big ones. Gazi thinks we should try and clear this place out to leave the node in, since the electronic parts that are here are that terrible." Another grunt and the sound of a blade going through stone and circuitry came across. "Tyra agrees that it would take a full reprocessing plant to get them useful enough to matter."

"Shawn, are you killing things while talking to us?" Roberts asked nervously as Vibration and Smile both began to herd him closer to one of the small indentations in the walls of the chamber to better protect the Investigator. Growlithe and Salamence were working together to take out the original lizard with their Fire typed attacks.

"He's mostly sticking to the small ones," the dangerous voice of Gazimon's Devidramon form rumbled. "A-0 thinks it has a better plan, apparently there is a main one that all of the others listen to, and if we kill it we might get the rest to stop long enough to figure out what to do with them."

"No! I will not fall here!" the partially melted form of the leader screamed, and then started to retreat rapidly towards one of the tunnels.

"Oh yes you are," Crusher rumbled beginning a charge straight towards it. "I know exactly how hard it is to find someone in tunnels like these." Jack watched the charge with a bit of worry that she would take too many hits on the way to their target. The Monochromon easily smashed through the rockier enemies throwing themselves into her path, the white glow of what looked like Iron Head attack coating her metal plates. "So just smash like a good loser!" she taunted as she slammed the injured metallic iguana into the cavern wall.

Suddenly almost all of the remaining creatures went limp. The only exceptions were the few currently under Salamence's control, which instead seemed to blink in confusion and look around with a strangely intelligent gaze compared to the state of the others. "Okay, congratulations whoever made this 'trap', you somehow made things get worse after we tried fixing things," the dragon complained releasing her survivors by dissolving the attached Analyzers. Rather than joining the others in laying down helplessly now that they were no longer under her power they continued looking around with a mixture of curiosity and unease.

\---

"There are records of his species evolving before, why is this change so significant?" Datamon asked clearly annoyed by the sparse and damaged components they had managed to recover. Absol was standing up on his hind legs out in the open area between the various buildings they were assembling with the others clustered around him to inspect the changes.

"Mega evolution is always a temporary effect," Anderson replied looking closely at the Hackware-hybrid. "It also has to this point only been available to pokemon that cannot evolve naturally. Absol's change seems to be a result of the Worm class Hackware that we merged with his body."

"It definitely felt the same as when it evolved from a Vir trio into a Worm," Absol commented turning his new hands thoughtfully.

"You can remember being the Worm?" Alice asked concerned, turning to look at the Wyrms staying relatively close to their relative.

"There isn't much there from it, or maybe I should say me?" he replied sounding a bit uncertain. "I'm pretty sure from the flames that I got the Fire type, so it was the Worm part of me that evolved."

"Looks like it, you do have the Fire type and even what looks like the data we took from the digimon remains now," Bob said also focusing on the other Wyrms.

"What is it like to evolve?" HackBiyomon asked in a quiet voice, drawing everyone's attention as she normally kept questions to herself while Datamon was around. After a moment they all realized she was asking because she now had that event as a possibility.

"It's, um," Absol stumbled before looking over towards Golbat and Weezing for help. The bat pokemon looked just as unsure of how to explain it as the newly evolved pokemon, but the collection of floating spheres nodded and gave what was apparently a very good explanation of the sensation given the reaction of the subset of the group that could understand pokemon. "Yes, just like that."

HackBiyomon looked less worried and more interested after hearing the pure Poison type's response. "That actually sounds kinda interesting," she said looking over at the remaining Crab that she had been working with so far. "Is, is that something that could happen to me, Master?" she asked the machine digimon dully.

"Self evolution, hmm. It might be possible given how the quantifiable energy you are using to increase the power of others is different from what is typical," Datamon thought out loud. "We may just have to look into it as a last resort option should you have expended all of your minions during a prolonged engagement." He then sighed loudly. "We will simply have to see what else we can recover from this latest target after our foes have finished trying whatever it is with the node."

\---

"So, let me see if I have this situation right," Janice said after the fact looking over the significantly more tattered clothes Shawn had returned in. "The target had set up this entire system as a trap for Upload."

"Without discussing it with any sort of law enforcement first," Investigator Roberts complained scratching at the neck of one of the 'Stonescale' soldier units that he had insisted on taking with them. The creature vaguely acknowledged this action, but was mostly content to just look around the room.

"Right," she dryly accepted the clarification. "Anyway, their plan was to strip the place and leave behind only a virus made to kill the invaders." Her tone was very cold here despite the Investigator anticipating the complaint. "Only both parts of that went wrong. The stuff they left behind was worth something at least, and the virus was able to use it to make itself an army of these things." She motioned to the rocky reptile, which let out a wordless hiss at the movement.

"Technically worth something," TyranoGazimon said using her small medical scanner on the available example of the teams' latest foe. "We might as well replace half the stuff in this guy if we want to keep him around. It's basically the same problem your corruption has, the code making him up isn't up for what he needs to work properly. His skin is just some random stone that was available, and his internals are all crappy electronics substitutes." She looked seriously at Roberts. "I can fix him given some parts. A good source of strong stone, preferably along with some help fixing his Rock type, and the chance to raid a robot factory would be enough." She tapped at the scanner again and frowned at the data. "Wouldn't be much of an improvement, mostly just making sure that he doesn't outright die from a couple good hits."

"Do we know anything about what happened with Upload in there?" the Team Lead asked slightly exasperated.

"I was able to pull some data from the node," Gazimon said keeping his eyes locked on the Stonescale. "Think I got a couple of video files and audio transcripts, mostly to cover up trying to clear out what we were doing with the thing. We haven't had time to look them over yet."

"We still have the remaining assembler device, and we found pieces around the spot where the fourth had been," Shawn said thoughtfully. "Have we figured out what it did before the virus changed it?"

"This device was a general purpose fabrication unit for reprocessing of inferior components into higher quality ones with high rate of loss," Metagross said darkly. "Conversion has heavily damaged that capacity, Upload would not be able to use any recovered remains for significant purposes." They then beeped darkly. "Conversion is non-reversible."

"Right, so Upload did something to take out one of their fabricators, then left us to clean up the mess," Janice continued. "At which point somebody pissed off an entire army of lizard monsters so badly that you all ended up in a massive fight. Including you deciding to go toe to toe with killer monsters directly," she said poking Shawn in the shoulder.

"Pretty sure it was me finding the original that set them off," Salamence said overly calmly. "Also I think I need to apologize to LAS about everything. Looking at what he did to that machine still has me feeling a bit sick."

"Looking at it like this isn't that great either," TyranoGazimon agreed tapping one of her patches of scales. "Any idea what's going to happen to the one we still have and the small army?"

"De, one of the LAS we made out of broken recording devices, has requested to get them back up and running, possibly with help from their siblings," A-0 told the digimon sadly. "The owners of the system have basically told us to use them as an army of our own to take on Upload, including basically giving us the system to store them in and use to make more. I think they are if anything upset we stopped the corruption from trying to take over everything it could get its claws on, as if it would be content to just take out Upload."

"I have a bit of extra work to do because of them," Investigator Roberts told the group as they turned to look at his response to this information. "With the performance your Troubleshooter teams have had during the investigation, and how we are currently more reactive than proactive, there is some talk of having myself moved to going after other problems that these new digital worlds are creating. One of my superiors is even proposing having Jack continue working with you for now as a point of contact while I head out to look into issues like this at the various sites. Salamence learning the Upload transport method has only helped with that argument."


	42. 2-18 Data Advancements

\--- Data Advancements ---

Gazimon looked around the blank grey box that they were finally setting up their fragment of the Dark Network inside. In particular he was eying the various Stonescale units milling about. "Do we really need to use them as the security force for this?" he asked A-0.

The Porygon-2 had seven panes open around the mass of wires and boxes that the distortions had resolved into as they restored the fragment to functionality. "We have a small army that we can't exactly get rid of, and this is about the only thing of ours we're really expecting to be attacked," it replied sighing. "At least we have help with giving them some training in how to guard something." The digital pokemon nodded over at a dinosaur made of circuits and sodder directing a small group of the former miners in how to actually think for themselves. Seven of the Rookie life forms from the raid where Gazimon had first evolved were present to assist in that task, along with six Guardians from the warehouse digital worlds.

"HardWare-Heavy believes that we Lights can make up for the horror we unleashed on the world," the indicated digital life form noted somberly. "Despite the utter failure of our system, the code that created us has been spread to others for much the same purpose. These creatures have been confirmed to be based upon us, and so we owe it to them to help with this issue. Providing the resources and education to make them fully functional is the least we could do."

A-0 shifted its position uneasily at this statement. "Good enough for me, let me know if you need any help," Gazimon said shaking his head. "Anyway, we still need to get the node from the undersea cable site setup before we can get started."

"So is that just to keep up the illusion that we're not too bright about how we're trying to use this stuff, or do we actually need the node to search for their base?" Shawn asked lazily leaning against Serperior, who was watching the various training digital life forms while sitting on top of the pile of sinister electronics.

"Both, actually I'm hoping some of the older stuff Etemon gave us to try and fix stuff ourselves is still there," the digimon answered. "When Crusher and Tyra are done with Alpha 45 I want to bring them here to see if we can get them some kind of access."

\---

"Sorry about taking so long to make time for you after we got interrupted by the attack," Alpha 45 told Jack's team and TyranoGazimon as they moved towards the attribute research facility inside of her Box. "The Acid Armor Adaptation Machine went to physical world testing and they needed me on hand to resolve any possible issues."

"'Adaptation Machine'?" Jack asked somewhat confused. "What does that actually mean?"

"It turns out that the physical changes caused by my new Acid Armor training method are actually a known side effect of some rarer ways for pokemon to learn moves," the Administrator replied sounding excited. "One relevant example is Metal Claw. Pokemon that don't learn it normally can end up figuring it out by having some process add metal to their claws, but they also will have their claws harden and become more metallic if they manage to learn how to use it without that change."

"So one of these Adaptation Machines is able to cause the change so that whoever is working on the move can learn how to do it?" TyranoGazimon asked with an interested look on her face.

"It is actually doing both. For Acid Armor we were already creating a one shot magic spell to transform the pokemon for the first time into the most appropriate material, then had an attached TM teach them how to use Acid Armor to return to that form," the Porygon-2 explained. "We've split the items apart now so that the spell is in a special holder for the TM, that way we can keep the training part reusable while making it easier to replace the stuff that only can be used once. Since there is also a greater need to learn how to use the changes to the pokemon's form with this kind of thing we also put a couple of guide books, and at my special request a TM made to provide some trainer information when used on a human."

"Do you have something like that for understanding pokemon?" Jack asked seriously, causing Strangle to stop suddenly and trip the trainer with her coils. "I'm fairly sure it won't end up turning me into a pokemon," he attempted to placate his starter.

"We've looked into that a bit more after the whole 'the second guy we did it to managed to evolve' thing," the Administrator replied. "Turns out part of how pokemon can understand each other so easily has to do with their energy being loose enough to help with that part. There's more to it than just that, and it is nowhere near loose enough to trigger pokeballs, but still that is an added risk to the whole thing."

"Well, I'm interested in it," he replied, earning an angry hiss from his starter. "If I could understand what you are saying then I wouldn't need to be interested in it." The two continued to argue for a moment despite the language barrier.

"So are there already some of these adapting machines out there, or is this a new thing you're making?" Crusher asked a little bit later when they had nearly reached the building, looking thoughtful about the prospect. "This one is for that melting thing the other snake does, right?"

"Most of the time it only happens because of a way of changing a pokemon's body. Stuff like changing type long term using some rather extreme substances, or eating a whole lot of a pokemon of a certain type." A sigh escaped the visitors at this example. "There has been work before to make some, but this is the first time anyone has had the kind of support you need to make testing them safe. Acid Armor is actually a really extreme one to start off with because of how melting like that is rare among pokemon, so I have gotten a lot of interest in expanding to some of the simpler ones after this," Alpha 45 explained excitedly. "That is even better than I hoped for as an outcome."

"That sounds great," TyranoGazimon agreed. "Well, not the whole melting ability thing, I'm fine with staying solid, but the stuff going well for you sounds good."

"Administrator, you're here already," De said as they reached the doorway, the jellyfish like creature seeming quite nervous.

"Which one this time?" the Porygon-2 replied a bit tiredly on seeing the digital life form's mood. "Is Al still upset over how we got cut off before he could be introduced to more Virals? Or are the two of them still saying their issue with waking up the Stonescales is the other one's fault?"

"Both of them are arguing about how the Monochromon ended up still being a Data attribute despite having a Viral mind," the digital life form sighed. "I have indicated that we have not in fact heard that she isn't Viral, but apparently there is some confusion over the results of scanning her?"

"Uh, wait, there might be a problem with me?" Crusher asked awkwardly lifting a forepaw towards her chest. "I thought we had everything fixed on that stuff."

"Ugh, right, Let's sort this out," Alpha 45 said opening the door and moving in to reveal two more jellyfish creatures, one purple and the other golden. "Alright, we are going over the issue. Come over here and get ready to help with move tuning." Both of them were then cut off as she continued. "The data so far shows a bit of a mismatch in her attribute, and I'm hoping that having a type makes that less of an issue long term."

\---

"Interesting, they seem to have reassembled the second node," Datamon said to the developer and techs as they went over data on potential targets. "Ah, they are trying to get more information out of the remains of the Dark Network they still have," he continued with a chuckle while the others looked at each other unimpressed.

"They aren't going to be able to use that to detect when we setup a new node at a target are they?" Bob asked a touch strongly, trying an angle of attack on what Upload clearly saw as a major problem.

This made the machine digimon stop moving for a moment with a frown. "A good point, this might also be an attempt to defeat our new masking program rather than just a way of investigating the remains. I should be able to temporarily isolate any new locations for the duration of an attack. Any direct applications that would be unavailable due to that procedure would also have us deploying combat or data manipulation forces, which would also disrupt the new masking method," he replied nodding, clearly having decided he had solved any issue and returning to smugly accepting the change.

"So what are you after for a next target then?" Alice asked clearly forcing herself to remain civil. "Are we going to try again for parts, or is there another goal?"

"After the last result I find myself in need of information on what is the state of your humanity's development of programming. It is clear from the results of the scans I have gained of those creatures that a common defensive program is the base of both that and the dinosaur like defenders of an earlier target," the digimon replied magnanimously. "There are three local facilities working with your artificial 'Porygonmon', this one in particular deals with the most advanced."

"Porygon-Z," Anderson said breathlessly. "We could do much with just a scan of one, let alone access to the data used to convert more advanced Porygon-2 into them. The major downside is that they are unstable. We would have half an hour at most before the masking program becomes unable to keep up with the natural distortions."

"It actually might be the best target out of them," Bob said thoughtfully. "Zs aren't safe to interact with normally, and putting advanced security anywhere around them is not something most researchers would risk." He rubbed at his head. "We should try and get in without letting them know about it, but with the instability and the fact that natural digital constructs form around places that store them we will need to have a combat team ready when it all goes bad."

"I used what notes we have from those things to make my contribution to the digital world conversion project," Alice added nodding. "We should avoid trying to steal the Porygon themselves, like Bob said they are really unstable. The attempts at alternate plane and universe interaction didn't go that great, but there are still some applications for the species."

"They are that unstable?" Datamon asked concerned, turning back to the information and looking at it more closely. "The notes indicate that it is an improvement and the accepted evolution."

"For combat use," Bob answered bluntly. "The common notes are about League and tournament performance, or rather the physical world in general. The instability is more pronounced inside a digital world, while outside they can learn to act around others much more easily than the other evolutionary stages. They are the most dangerous variant, but it is a downgrade for their original purpose."

"I find the combat focus of your world very worrying," the digimon said genuinely conflicted. "Perhaps some clarification on the subject of the League would help. How did this form of global government come to be?"

"Government? I mean, they do make rules and stuff for the League itself, and that affects how most trainers do things, but it is regional governments that make most of the actual laws," Bob responded clearly confused.

"And even then the worldwide League is less a single entity and more a case of the various regional Leagues having enough contact with each other to unify their own rule sets," Anderson added nodding. "Which is a part of your answer. The League formed from the unification and standardization of the smaller regional Leagues across the world."

"And why exactly does your world require so many of those tournaments?" Datamon asked trying to get more details on the topic. "What is the goal?"

Anderson then turned back to his system and began searching the documentation available. "Those smaller tournaments and trials are a common feature among regions for one simple reason, it is always useful to have individuals around who possess the power to face the Legendary pokemon of the world, or other threats of similar magnitude."

"Basically the current system is a formal way of finding the strongest trainers, who then act to deal with disasters needing that level of power. Things like Legendary pokemon in danger, Legendary pokemon causing cities to be in danger, or massive criminal organizations the they need to take down," Alice clarified wincing a bit at the last item. "The older systems that were historically used are typically altered to fit having more people attempt them all at once."

"Although it is easy to always have it end up being the same three main parts," Bob continued realizing the issue was a larger lack of context. "First there is the Gym challenge, which has a lot of variability between regions depending on how they originally did things. That is a way of measuring how good a trainer is at taking care of pokemon and training them to fight or do other things, stuff that helps out with a lot of jobs. After that is the League Tournament itself, which ranks the trainers who can complete all of the badges in one year. That one figures out who can handle the level of combat needed for full time combat focused work. Finally there is the Elite Four challenge, where the winner of the Tournament is allowed to go against a string of four extremely powerful trainers in a row to win the chance to challenge a Champion and join their ranks."

"You have to fight the Champion right after the Four, so it is technically five battles in a row," Alice said smirking. "Anyone strong enough to win that is definitely powerful enough to take on a rampaging Legendary."

Anderson then found his goal, an image of various Leagues with a Legendary Pokemon next to each. "Which is the true origin of the titles. The rank of Champion Trainer actually comes from a number of specific titles, each originally granted directly by a local Legendary pokemon, or given to the trainer who takes up the task of protecting against a given Legendary," the developer said pointing to a pair of birds next to a large stadium. "Kanto's was either the Champion of Moltres or of Ho-Oh, it is a bit unclear historically which of the two fire birds was the one doing the selecting as the former is something of a subordinate to the latter."

"It is a bit of a mess in our current region," Alice added when she spotted the deliberately blank look on the digimon's face. "The Flameheart League just calls its winner the 'Wendrago Champion', which almost sounds like they turn into one instead of working for or against one. You need to at least have hit the top eight of the local tournament to go to the Flameheart Glacier where they are supposed to live, and that gives the League its name. That the Legendary is supposedly the result of travelers who have been taken over by angry spirits doesn't help make it any clearer what it meant back then."

"Figuratively or literally?" Datamon asked sounding a bit disbelieving of his own question.

"Most people will never see a Legendary pokemon, so actually knowing that kind of thing is really hard," Bob replied. "Safest bet is to assume there are literally spirits possessing travelers and turning them into really spiky looking Dragon/Ice typed pokemon."

"How do we avoid having these trainers sent after us?" the digimon asked after contemplating their answers for a moment.

"Mostly by staying in digital worlds. There aren't many transport systems out there, and DSS is so far the only group with the response time to hit us during an attack," Alice told him. "We also avoid killing people or pokemon, that escalates things a lot. Capture would be fine if we had a reason, but honestly we're still mostly trying to get ourselves safe before deciding what to do next."

\---

"So, just to be clear, my attribute is not stable but that somehow isn't a problem?" Crusher the Monochromon asked in a way that told everyone she did not think that was very clear at all.

"If it had been left like that without giving you a type it would have eventually resolved itself," Alpha 45 told the digimon. "Probably to Viral from what I can see here. Now that you're part pokemon it is a bit less tied to you." The Porygon-2 looked towards the three jellyfish like creatures. "From initial testing a pokemon can express two at once, with the end result being a shift in resistances. The third attribute becomes neutral, while you get a resistance to one of your own and a weakness to the other. In your case you would get a resistance to Data and a weakness to Viral, but take only normal damage from Vaccine."

"Being weak to our main enemy doesn't sound the best," the metal plated digimon replied considering the result. "I take it there is some other reason to go with that option?"

"Less chance of having either your body or mind altered by changing attribute," Al complained. "Your body is adapted to Data, and changing it would definitely alter it in unknown ways. Your mind on the other hand is Viral, and I can easily say that it isn't fun to have that change on you," he continued a hint smugly.

"We aren't changing anyone's attribute without a lot of consideration now," Be said clearly glaring at her brother. "Salamence ended up Vaccine when she was converted, and she's just about the only pokemon with one right now. After the results it was decided to not be worth the hassle."

"The Stonescales you two tried to revive started attacking the others because they took on your attributes," De complained with a sigh. "The dragon is the only one who managed stable Vaccine instances, and I've had to handle the rest of them."

"The good news is that we're used to dealing with unexpected mental or physical side effects in my Box," Alpha 45 said seeing that the discussion had caused her visitors a good amount of concern. "All of the pokemon volunteers actually had direct comparisons to past events to work from, and we were able to restore them to normal easily."

"I'm still concerned about my trainer ending up a pokemon," Strangle the Serperior said harshly, quickly translated by Al who seemed to find amusement in the pursuit of matching her tone.

"Then don't let him come into Boxes," Marowak said walking into the room carrying a small stack of bone clubs. "Corruption does not care what you are to start with, and Administrators tend to have projects." Be translated for her, clearly competing with her brother.

"He wants to be able to talk to pokemon," the local Administrator said sounding rather fond of the inhabitant's statement. "I think the two of them are taking advantage of translation to argue about it."

"Hmm," the skull masked pokemon said moving to look more closely at Jack. "Smells like death and wood. Trevenant maybe?"

"Uh, might be me, I was made out of dead wood a bit ago," Vibration said while Smile looked uneasily at the bone keeper. Both of them briefly looked nervously at their trainer's bag.

"Nope, definitely a Ghost type," she replied turning back towards her original destination. "Probably not an actual Trevenant from the looks of things, but something close. Maybe Alolan? I've met one of my own species from there with the type, and it seems a bit similar."

Three pokemon turned to awkwardly look at their trainer, seeming uneasy with the statement. Vibration and Smile in particular seemed to both understand the statement and want to change the topic. "I have some ancestry from there," Jack admitted missing the looks. "From about as far back as Shawn is from Unova, so probably not enough to really matter."

"Right, my new team is very quietly panicking over whatever you are talking about," the Monochromon rumbled interrupting the discussion. "So maybe we should move back to figuring out what 'moves' I can get."

"Sounds safer," Marowak agreed. "What Steel type attacks is she missing?" the Ground type asked Alpha 45.

"All she has is two things close to both Iron Head and Tail, along with some kind of fireball attack that seems to have been damaged in the past. It looks like that might have been done deliberately to the original owner of the body," the Porygon-2 answered getting a nervous nod from the two digimon. "TyranoGazimon is a bit more of a mess, but her types seem to have taken off. Possibly because of the larger degree of changes made to her body."

"You think I'm more of a pokemon than the others," the half dinosaur said to clarify. "Because you used this energy to fix me," she then realized aloud. "Which means more of it is in me as a side effect."

"You have Ember, not something like Ember, the actual pokemon move," the Administrator agreed. "Along with some standard Normal type moves and the shattered remains of a number of digimon attacks. In both cases you two have a lot of options available for me to build up your variety of moves."

"We're still working out the kinks with adding attributes," the bone keeper cautioned them. "Partly because it is hard to tell what exactly needs to be changed." She hefted her load of bones. "These have all been set to different ones, and the results are mixed a bit too much."

"Which is why we're staying away from that to start entirely. The Ember I mentioned is already Viral, but everything else we give you two is going to be without any attribute for the time being," Alpha 45 told the group.

\---

Absol felt his stomach drop at the familiar sensation of the new digital world, which was a brightly colored mess of disconnected floating platforms. Next to him one of the Wyrms hissed, specifically a survivor of the raid on the DSS storage box. "It was a Z," he said faintly looking at the shattered landscape with fresh horror. "DSS has a Porygon-Z that they gave their own private digital world." Shaking his head he lifted off the platform they had appeared on. "Let's do this quick."

"N3w sp@ce?" a highly distorted voice suddenly cut in, followed by the formation of a number of disconnected shapes in pink and blue. "O0h, ne{ 7hing2 t-o." Absol felt the paths fall apart entirely as the creature caught sight of them, as if causality itself was falling apart just with the creature's presence. With a hint of panic he quickly looked around to spot any data storage locations.

"Guys, send support now, I've been spotted by a Z!" he shouted while giving a silent order for the other Hackware to scatter.

"We're on our way, the thing crashed the mask anyway!" Alice replied in a rush over communications.

The Porygon-Z suddenly shifted in location over next to one of the Worms with a scratching sound, somehow pinning it in place with just a gaze. "Wh4t !s in2ide?" it asked with curiosity before starting to peel apart the polygons of the Hackware. Absol forced himself to look away even as one Wyrm moved to attack the digital pokemon. He could just barely see their flat red flames hit the Porygon, making it flinch and turn to face the other digital creature. "Bad," it said quite clearly, coating the Wyrm in something like ice to stop its movement. Then with that done it went back to destructively analyzing the Worm.

Shaken Absol quickly moved to the first thing he had spotted that looked like a possible data storage system. It was a flat mirror like structure sticking up from one platform that he had hoped was some sort of monitor like system. To his relief it did contain part of the information they were after, and he quickly began to copy everything as quickly as he could.

Unfortunately his reinforcements were accompanied by Investigator Roberts and the mess of DSS pokemon that was for some reason showing up without a trainer. For some unknown reason the Investigator was accompanied by one of the combat creatures from his last target, although this one looked to be in much better shape. The Armaldo set him on edge as well, the other pokemon of its group were well trained, the Tyranomon was typical for that species according to Datamon, but the fossil Bug appeared to be half feral and yet at the same time strangely human.

"How bad are we looking Absol?" Bob shouted as the small force of Goliaths, Crabs, Vir, and Dos moved to intercept them. Alice had moved back with one Shrine and a couple of Stones to began sectioning off their enemies.

The Hackware hybrid looked at the Porygon-Z, who was still focused entirely on its victim. "I don't know if that Wyrm is dead or not, I really hope the Worm is, and that thing is making reality go a bit sideways." He spotted HackBiyomon evolving two of the Crabs and flying towards another possible data storage location. "We can't afford to stay here too long," he called out just before the Worm shattered under the Porygon's attempts.

"B:gger 0ne n3xt," the digital pokemon said basically ignoring the fight around it to move to apparently take apart the frozen Wyrm now.

"Okay, I'm not looking forward to fixing this problem after all of you are out of here," the Quagsire complained with exasperation even as she created mud to splatter their forces. "Because I've seen what Porygon can do and that is a terrifying statement to hear out of one."

"You aren't the same species as the thing its pulling apart!" Absol had to respond.

"Negative, non-sapient variant. Responds to actions but does not have full cognition," the Z said, again shifting to a clear tone that managed to be worse than the distortions. "Larger unit has minimal cognition, destructive analysis may be inappropriate. Further inspection needed."

"Really want to call this one a failure here!" Absol shouted as he cut off his download, and ordered the other Wyrms and Worms to do the same while preparing to get out. It was possible that he had gotten enough data, but without the paths he was useless for telling that.

"Wait, just a little longer," HackBiyomon said dully, probably under Datamon's control. "Will be done soon," she added looking with just a touch of worry at the curious Porygon-Z as it maneuvered the claws of the frozen Wyrm.

"0th3rs com1ng?" the Porygon-Z then asked turning to look at empty space.

"Not an option, pulling us out," Alice declared and Absol lost his ghostly footing as whatever transport program she used ripped them out of the system.

"Gah, dammit I had programs ready," he complained as he felt his preparations itch painfully as they suddenly were looking for data that wasn't there. Despite this he was relived to see the inside of Datamon's lab, and far more so to feel the paths return to making sense. "Oh. Looks like we got it anyway," he added smiling widely at the avoidance of a number of bad future disasters and the presence of quite a few of the better options.

\---

"They disrupted a Porygon-Z containment site?" A-0 asked as they used the new Dark Network system as a larger debriefing area. "Have they lost their minds?" Janice and Metagross were still in the main Troubleshooter lab appearing via communications window, Shawn's team was sticking around the control system for the Network, the teams of Quagsire and Roberts were sitting a short distance away among the vaguely interested Stonescales, and Jack's team plus TyranoGazimon was sitting around the repositioned Dark Network Node.

"It is hard to find more advanced and less secured digital life form data anywhere else," Janice said sounding like she still agreed with the sentiment. "Without going over to another region the only place with more advanced Porygon research is here, and the only sites less secured are all well below the kind of data they should be able to get just from their own older notes."

"It took an hour for us to get that thing back to its own system," Quagsire said flopped onto her belly and looking half asleep. "An entire hour of trying to keep a mad digital god distracted without you or Gazi there to at least talk about things on the same level."

"It had... interesting ideas about how to look at data," Salamence said with a far off look. "I think I got a bit distracted by them for a while, and did things I shouldn't have."

"Inter dimensional travel experiments tend to produce instability in Porygon," the LAS said floating above the hybrid dragon to inspect her for any problems after the close contact with the Porygon-Z. "From firsthand data provided from this attack I believe it is safe to say that Charlie 13 has evolved in that manner."

"I was really afraid you'd say that," A-0 admitted sighing. "What did they get?"

"LAS has the right idea, mostly transport data that resulted in the evolution," Janice told him. "It could be bad, but from what they took it is probably stuff to improve their transport abilities." The display window shifted to be looking more towards Gazimon. "What about the Network, how is that going?"

The rabbit digimon was looking over a small bank of black monitors he had made to replace the systems he was familiar with using. "Good news, and complicated news. The complicated news is that Datamon tried to keep us from simply using a node listing to find any new attack sites by restricting the updates until after the place was discovered," he answered nodding.

"So we can't use it to track where a new attack is happening then?" Jack asked sounding a bit disappointed.

"Eh, that's actually why it is complicated. Ya see, he is trying to keep the new node from showing up by doing that, but back when I was acting as a trainer for a group of the really young Gazimon they attempted that same trick," Gazimon replied with a smile. "So I know what it looks like, but if we do react to it then Datamon will know that I have some idea what I'm doing here."

"A trainer for young Gazimon?" TyranoGazimon asked laughing. "How old are you digger? I don't even recognize half the programs you have there."

"Can't be too old," Crusher said frowning. "All the Gazimon from back when Datamon was captured have evolved or died, mostly the second one."

"I was only a Pagumon back then," he grumbled, earning somewhat shocked looks from the two digimon. "Anyway, I can find a new target using the node they set up, but we should be figuring out another way to do that so he keeps doing this."

"Why is that old timer?" Tyranomon rumbled smiling widely. "I was also In Training around that time," he then clarified at the dark look this statement earned. "Given I have been a Champion for some time you are a very old Rookie."

"Because the way he's trying this restricts the new node to only communicate with their home base while it is hiding that way," Gazimon grumbled still smiling. "It is a lot faster to determine how to get into the base with that information then it would have been just using the spy programs alone. Two or three more targets instead of over five."


	43. 2-19 Hybridization

\--- Hybridization ---

The Armaldo's pale green coated claws clashed with the human's brighter green blade, both turning the other's attack away from their own bodies. They then followed up with levitated stones and harsh kicks, both largely dodged by the targets.

"Just to be entirely clear to the digimon here, these two fighting is not in fact normal in any way," Janice said from the edge of the combat area where Grant and Shawn were having a bit of a trial match. The former human and possibly still human continued under the watchful gaze of their respective starters.

"I dunno, this seems pretty normal to me at this point," Gazimon said slyly.

"Generally the way the world works is that if you encounter something you end up finding more and more of it," Investigator Roberts said sounding a bit uneasy about what they were watching. "Find a rare color of pokemon, and other rare colored pokemon will seek you out. Meet a Legendary pokemon and the others can feel its mark to take a look at you. Encounter criminal actions and you end up spotting others." He looked over at his own team sitting watching the battle with wide eyes. "I guess in this case it is 'deal with weird digital problems, encounter more digital oddities'."

"I've helped a Legendary pokemon fill out their vocabulary in this job," Janice commented dryly. "And we have an entire Box just for a lab studying atypical colorations. Add in dealing with Upload and we've got literally all of those problems plus a bunch of creatures ending up other kinds of creatures."

Shawn then countered a charging series of slashes by growing a number of vines out of the ground to entangle Grant. "Hey! What have I said about trying new moves without going over it with me," Serperior demanded of his trainer at this act, while Quagsire groaned at the way her life had turned out.

"So, are they trying to warn me off from getting the ability to speak like a pokemon, or is this trying to entice me to go farther than that?" Jack asked looking surprisingly calm towards his old rival acting entirely like a pokemon.

"Uh huh, right. There's no way Shawn didn't do this kind of thing back when you knew him too," Gazimon commented as the battle broke apart into the snake pokemon lecturing the maybe-human and the fossil excitedly going over his plans for future training to his Trainer/Starter.

\---

"DSS is too willing to fight our Hackware," the lead grunt complained, his Murkrow preening his hair and sharing his unhappiness. "It isn't at all like having a strong enough team of pokemon. They can have that feral fossil just go after whatever it wants and the digi-monsters don't need to learn how to hold back that much."

The others carefully checked that Datamon was not anywhere nearby, including HackBiyomon. "What can we do about that?" she asked sighing. "It hasn't even been just them fighting us, and what else would they do?"

"Normally pokemon battles aren't to the death when humans are in charge of them," Absol said laying down instead of trying to sit on a bench again. He was still adapting to his new form, and largely was acting like he was simply larger than before. "The exceptions, unfortunately, match up to what Hackware does unfortunately closely. Pokemon that reproduce very quickly and assemble in large numbers can be a risk to settlements, and if large enough even cites. If they can't be contained or moved, then they end up killed out of self preservation."

"One of the trainers listed as working with DSS in the last update I snagged out of the police records is also listed as having dealt with that kind of issue," Alice said uneasily. "Grant, no last name given. Where he's gone is a question, as that fossil monster is working with, his, team," she trailed off uncertainly. "We got a Claw Fossil in that raid on the resurrection lab, and had to leave it behind when the Tyranomon hit that site."

"That doesn't explain why he's not showing up anymore," Bob replied confused by the change in topic.

"Snake eyes acts like a Serperior," Golbat's trainer said looking shaken. "You think that maybe they decided that having actual humans on their side isn't worth it compared to hybrids?"

"What do you mean?" the bird digimon asked in a tone that indicated she had an idea already.

"The Armaldo might be this 'Grant'," Alice said dropping her head forward. "Which means that they are able to make humans into combat monsters too."

"Too bad we couldn't do that," one of the pokemon-less grunts complained. "Best we have is turning pokemon into hybrids like Absol."

"What's the difference?" HackBiyomon asked picking at her feathers. "I used to be a human before becoming a hybrid." The rest of the group looked over at the digimon. "Uh, is there a difference?"

"There shouldn't be," the female tech said moving to look at her computer system. "The main difference between humans and pokemon is that our energy is more tightly contained, and DSS is able to get around that somehow. If they can do that with normal pokemon data, then we should be able to use Hackware."

"The older and more advanced a Hackware is, the more memories and thoughts from it will show up in the result," Absol cautioned them stretching his new wings. "Most of ours are around the age of the Worm that is now a part of me, but the new Champions are a bit smarter from the start."

The lead grunt looked seriously at the pokemon. "How big of a risk is this if we go through with it?"

The hybrid looked over at HackBiyomon, then closed his eyes for a moment. "This is the big one," he said opening his eyes again to look at the digimon. "Either we pull off freeing her, or this is the thing Datamon needs to make us all into his ever loyal minions. That is the only major risk."

"I hate him," the former clone whispered nearly silently. "I can't even think it clearly because of what he's done to make me like that. I needed to pretend I was talking about someone else just to say that, and it's still made my head feel like its going to split open." She turned to look Alice in the eyes. "I don't care what kind of villains you are, if you let me think what I think about him instead of what he wants me to think I'll do whatever it takes to pay you back."

"That's the Dark type talking," Absol commented looking away from her sadly. "You want to make your enemies pay even if it hurts who you are."

"I can't figure out who I am!" the Flying/Dark type shouted, using a strong flap to move closer to him and send a blast of wind across the area. "I try and ask what Sora would have done, and his orders cut into it and I can't tell what they are covering up. I try and think things that don't bother my orders and it ends up being evil, because he's evil and anything he wouldn't care about me thinking differently has to fit that." There was then a long period of silence as they all considered their options.

"We can pull off getting rid of the rest?" Alice asked deliberately keeping herself focused on her computer system. "Datamon won't notice?"

"She'll still need to hear them so she can act right when he's around," the disaster pokemon mumbled. "We can split them out though, so that she can hear them but they aren't mandatory anymore. It doesn't guarantee she isn't found out, but its the best we got short of surrendering now and hoping DSS is able to help her."

"We're that deep?" Bob asked flinching. "That giving up is one of the better results?"

"For HackBiyomon, yes. The rest of us not as much," Absol clarified. "The other pokemon will end up better than me, and even I'd make it out of that option better than the rest of you." Then the silent contemplation returned, now with the additional unease of the reality of the situation.

"How do we hide it for me?" the digimon asked quietly. "So you all don't need to get in trouble, how do we get rid of his control over me without being obvious."

"Evolution," Bob said. "We say we want to look into what happens when you evolve yourself, make the changes beforehand to fix some of the issues we've spotted from Absol evolving, and then say it has given us what we need to combine humans with Hackware."

\---

She was shaking. The idea of becoming Birdramon was almost as unnerving as the thought that she had now fully thrown herself in with these thieves. To distract herself she looked over the various Hackware forms resting around the chamber as Anderson and HER MASTER worked out just what changes would appear to be needed. Seeing the varied shapes reminded her that Absol did not look like his intended evolutions, and that made HackBiyomon realize she needed to also consider the possibility she would not become Birdramon but something else instead.

"This here could be better off with a copy of this portion," Datamon said pointing between locations, and she froze for a moment as Anderson smiled in just the way to let her know that HER MASTER was falling for a trick. With a great deal of pain she did not INFORM HIM OF THE DECEPTION IMMEDIATELY, CONTROL PROGRAM AT RISK.

"Excellent, yes that would prevent it from restricting the charge either to just other digital monsters or to just herself," the developer complimented him as if discovering that issue was not the intent of it being there. "A real concern with this kind of data manipulation. We still need to work that out sometimes with Stones that prefer one method over others."

The machine digimon then moved to implementing the changes in her without pause. She forced her face still as the changes clicked into place. ERROR CONTROL PROGRAM IS AT RISK ran through her head a bit more distantly than before. "Should I try now?" she asked now fighting a smile instead of a frown at the latest bit of freedom.

"We do not know how large you will become. You do recall the typical size of Champions?" Datamon asked, and for once she could think of the utter hypocrite bastard as something other than her 'master'. The command program then listed out a number of actions to take along with more error messages that stung, but not as much as mental disobedience had before. She nodded as they indicated and followed the rest mechanically to follow them outside for an attempt at evolution.

"This data is actually rather interesting," the human developer said as they reached the outer doors. "It reminds me a bit of when we were looking into options to help Absol when he was injured. Perhaps it is time to look back into hybrid creation now that we have more advanced Hackware to use as a basis."

The machine digimon paused in the middle of opening the door with a look of consideration. "Would it be a significant boost to the few pocket monsters we have?" he asked clearly thinking something else, and reminding HackBiyomon that the risk of this move was everyone else falling under the other digimon's control.

"HackBiyomon was originally human, correct?" Anderson asked, and she barely contained a shudder at the wide smile this produced on Datamon's face. "Perhaps an increase in intelligence will allow for better performance."

These people were trying to help her, they had already gone out of their way to give her free will. Even if it was just practice to avoid the threat that smile promised for them, she owed them her life. The only problem was that they were criminals, they had only woken up Datamon to escape from the consequences of their crimes. Consequences that just earlier they had all looked ready to face to ensure she was made free of the machine digimon's control. She didn't think that they could all have faked that response to trick her into helping them, and there was a part of her that felt if they were all good enough to trick her like that then she wanted them as allies.

The same dark part of her mind she believed was a result of the Dark type she had been given, a harsh thought process that wanted to be cruel and terrible to her enemies. Like secretly erasing parts of Datamon's current memories that were not commonly used, and when he encountered the loss asking if they were actually important to what they were doing. Her control programs was screaming about UNIT THREATENING CREATOR ERROR, and ACT ONLY TO RECOVER MASTER'S MEMORIES, but she could finally ignore those commands.

"HackBiyomon, is there an issue?" said digimon suddenly asked breaking her out of that brief fantasy. He wasn't paying much attention to her despite this statement, and she was too happy with being able to think about harming him to get mad about that. His gaze was instead locked on the red crystal like towers that had grown around the generator units. "I had thought there were fewer generator units than that," he continued making it clear he had not even realized she had been distracted.

"The Shrines figured out how to make more out of the kind of material that Hackware are all made of," Alice said walking up. "We've actually been finding a lot of new things they can do along those lines since we got them. I'd like to be able to build stuff like that," she continued, clearly trying to hammer in the idea of merging them with Hackware.

"Perhaps something can be done about that," Datamon suggested with a slightly sinister tone. HackBiyomon was slightly surprised to find this was not at all different from the tone he had taken before, and she felt somewhat exasperated by how his control program had so changed her perception of him that she could not even tell he was making that obvious mistake before.

"Can they re-create the systems we used back when Absol was hurt?" Anderson asked casually.

"Possibly, it will be pretty big though. It takes a lot of the material to remake a functional device, and the result is also much larger than the original," the tech replied nodding. "Is HackBiyomon ready to try and evolve herself now?"

"She is," Datamon answered for her, while her control program insisted she shouldn't reply herself. "This should be an open enough area if the result matches the original Biyomon's Champion form."

Holding in a sigh HackBiyomon prepared for the attempt. She had already gone over the sensations as best she could with the Crabs that had worked with her before, although getting a worthwhile answer out of the simple creatures had been difficult. The burst of energy was odd to suddenly feel after the much smaller loss of power, but it was simple enough to simply let what came next happen.

She could feel her body growing larger, and the proportions of it changing, but overall she didn't feel much change to her overall shape. Blinking HackSaberdramon looked around, noting the knowledge of her new name but not thinking to hard about it yet. Everyone around her now appeared tiny, to the point where it would be quite easy to carry any one of them, possibly even many of them at once. A number of new error filled topics appeared from her control program, and it suddenly seemed so simple to just fix those problems. While only halfway thinking about it she patched the errors in the now separated program so that instead of trying to force her to obey Datamon it was providing her with a clear and easily used method to deceive him about her loyalty.

"Strange, the Hackware influence is far more obvious," the machine digimon said reaching out to a small fragment of her awareness. One that it took a moment for her to realize was a black colored Dos unit directly under her control. It was one of a small cloud of them flaking off her body in much the same way flames had come from Birdramon's. Looking herself over using a mix of her normal eyes and the limited information from those units she found a fragmented black crystal-like version of the other bird digimon, complete with wicked teeth and talons. A part of her felt that normally there would be even less difference between her own shape and Birdramon's, but her so called master's statement was correct.

"I kind of want to rip something apart, Master," she rumbled in a deeper voice, the statement crafted by her new deception program to make him think the evolution had made her more violent in nature, although HackSaberdramon wasn't actually sure it had not.

"The Dos appear viable," Anderson said idly, as if the change was nothing impressive. This was unlike most of the other Upload personnel present, who were all looking at her with surprise. The other exception was Absol, who was smiling very widely, giving an indication that she was likely truly free now. "It appears that you are being used as the central point for a swarm of them. If you do not mind I'd like to try and have some transferred to and from another swarm to see the results."

Checking how much of the burst of energy remained she considered the question, keeping an eye on Datamon to see what he had to say about this. "I do not see a problem with that," she said after a moment to be sure he had no objections with her responding. She felt that she could keep herself in this form for some time if she didn't need to fight anyone.

\---

"When was your spirit taken out of your body?" Delta 2 bluntly asked Jack while continuing to look over one of the newly upgraded Stonescales. A Hardware-Light was nervously pacing next to him, the circuitry dinosaur having a much more uniform layout than had been typical with far less excess sodder.

"Can we not talk about that?" Smile asked shifting uneasily on his base. The possessed pumpkin looked nervously between the medic Porygon and Strangle while avoiding his trainer.

"No, because I've had a talk with a pokemon that apparently has experience with Ghost types and thinks your trainer is at risk of being one," the Administrator replied and waved an arm at TyranoGazimon. "I looked into what she was saying, and to my surprise found that you have evidence of the opposite of possession." The patchwork digimon brought up a scan of the trainer on a console while Delta 2 focused on her own work.

"I would also like to know what the Gourgeist I know that I caught for him has to do with my trainer having not been in his body," Strangle hissed looming over the other Grass type.

"Did you end up at the Forest Lodge?" Shawn asked thoughtfully. "Back when it was our League there was supposedly one of the infamous 'Masquerade Ball' events held by the Ghost types there."

"Wings weren't too bad," the other trainer quietly confessed. "Dad gave me that old Decidueye mask he made for that heritage display back when we started out. Said it would be a good luck charm."

"The one everyone else agreed felt cursed?" Serperior asked looping his body a bit further away from the other trainer. "I mean, seriously everyone. Your dad got glassy eyed every time he was in the same room as the thing, are you sure he wasn't trying to get rid of it?"

"Yeah, it might have gone worse than that," Vibration noted sighing. "Jack, do you remember the fight?"

"You mean whatever happened after they brought out the punch bowl? No, I can't," his trainer admitted uneasily.

"I remember a week before I left for good you left me in town for a couple of days while going after the Lodge," Strangle said overly calmly. "You came back having somehow made that damned mask not feel cursed anymore."

"We banished the Decidueye in the mask, but Jack helped out with it," Smile told his teammate uncertainly.

"Ok, can we back up and explain what exactly we're talking about here?" TyranoGazimon cut in waving her arms. "You guys all apparently know what we're talking about, but I got lost with the serious discussion of this guy just getting ripped out of his body."

"The Forest Lodge is a famous haunted location in the region. It is known that periodically the Ghost types that live there make it look like it is still inhabited and hold a big costume party inside," Delta 2 said rubbing her face. "After a while they then use ghostly magic to remove the living participants from their bodies for a short time while taking on the form of whatever they are dressed up as."

"Alpha 20 tried to have one once," A-0 said groaning. "It was a big mess, and it took us weeks to fix what he had done to everyone. Shawn ended up with slit eyes for a month." Everyone looked over at the Troubleshooter, and his currently entirely Serperior eyes. "Yes, we actually fixed that sort of thing for him back then."

"Which typically does not produce this level of disconnection, so what went wrong?" the Administrator said looking over at the two Ghost types for a moment.

"The mask was cursed, somehow the spirit of a real Decidueye got into it, a mean one," the Flygon explained when his teammate failed to do so. "All of the party Ghosts started panicking, because she used the change to try and bring herself back to life."

"Likely killing Jack when it did so," Strangle noted darkly.

"That is why they were all upset, nobody is supposed to die during the events," Smile agreed distracted. "So we ended up in a real fight to somehow get the mask off Jack and the spirit split from his. We managed to do the first before the second, which had this old Haunter yelling at us when it was all over."

"After the mask was off the Decidueye got mad, because it meant she wouldn't get a new body," Vibration explained looking uneasily at his pale markings. "I think I might get what she meant now. Anyway, she decided if she couldn't have Jack's body he couldn't either. So we had to get him away from her."

"It worked out in the end, although the other Ghosts seemed worried about Jack looking like a Decidueye himself when he got split. That helped though, we wouldn't have done it without that arrow," the Gourgeist admitted looking at his trainer.

"Sorry, I only remember coming to back in my body after the punch came out," Jack said leaning on Crusher, the Monochromon simply listening to the story with wide eyes. "Is that going to be bad?" he asked the medical Administrator.

"Gee, you were turned into the Ghost of a monster and had to help fight like that to get back," TyranoGazimon sarcastically replied. "Only way that could get worse is if the monster you ended up is already a Ghost itself."

"Decidueye are Ghost types," Delta 2 corrected her assistant. "Which means you are not getting translation unless your team is also up for giving you ghostly flying lessons."

"I think we have enough technically dead pokemon on the team," Vibration said taking advantage of his position as the most recent member of that group.

Strangle looped herself around her trainer angrily. "I really do not like being unable to threaten you normally in this situation," she informed him. "Please tell me you don't still have the mask."

"Uh, I do actually," he cautiously said pulling a red beaked mask with black markings and a light tan lower jaw area. "Come to think of it I haven't tried wearing it since then," he then said thoughtlessly putting it on his face.

"Wait," Delta 2 said with just her tone making clear she could not believe he would attempt it. Any further statements were cut off by a brief flash of light replacing the fully human trainer with a massive brown and green feathered owl.

Strangle wasted no time in binding around the new pokemon tightly and shifting to have her face practically touching his beak. "You'd better be able to take that off again or I will go so far that the Legendaries will bind me tighter than Giratina in response," she coldly hissed in his face, her coils slowly tightening further around him.

"I can!" Jack chirped moving feathered arms up to his face and feeling around the edges. After a moment they suddenly moved forward producing another flash and restoring both mask and trainer to normal. "See, it came-" he started then trailed off. "Did I just turn into a pokemon?"

"Drop, the, mask," his starter replied still clamped around his now once more human body.

"Wait, stop!" the Administrator said more strongly, her eyes focused on the mask. "Do not drop the mask, do not put on the mask. The both of you can stay right where you are, and wait for me to get a good look at the mystical artifact that might just possibly contain some or all of his spirit." She turned back to the Stonescale, who was simply watching idly. "I will get back with you in a moment, the typical madness has arrived and I need to handle it. Tyra, keep an eye on them."

"I can handle most of these problems fine, boss. It's the other stuff I need a bit more information to figure out," the half dinosaur said turning to look at the digital life forms. Delta 2 moved around the trainer and starter slowly along with a number of now floating sensor devices. Everyone else shuffled around nervously while the two of them worked.

"Carefully, hand me the mask," Delta 2 said to Jack as if speaking with a small child. The trainer seemed unusually nervous as he attempted to hand it over, and in the end was left with his fingers clamped around the mask with it resting in the Administrator's hand. "Right, bad news, part of you is in the mask now. You should be fine if someone takes it from you as long as you get it back fairly quickly, and the worst you need to be afraid of is strangely enough what would happen to someone else if they put it on."

"He'd take them over?" Shawn asked bluntly.

"Yes, and I'm not comfortable enough saying that won't happen to think we shouldn't prepare for it. So congratulations, you're talking with the LAS about controlling others and trying it out at some point," the Porygon-2 answered with a sigh. Jack quickly took the mask back and looked at it warily, and his Serperior slid down off of him to glare at the Administrator. "Nope, not open for argument, Strangle. He will end up with someone else trying to wear that at some point, and he needs to know how to react to being in two places at once."

"Are we also testing me turning into a pokemon?" Jack asked not sounding very excited. "Because we really didn't want to have another Grass or Ghost type on the team, let alone another of both." Despite saying this the mask seemed to be moving back towards his face.

"Given it turns whoever puts it on into a Decidueye, yes that is part of that," Delta 2 told him. "I mean whoever, I was not joking when I called it an artifact. It is a part of you, so you're mostly safe from the downsides of that, but it is still one of the more dangerous things I've ever seen."

"Alright, Jack, I know what dangerous things Delta 2 has seen," Shawn said, his entire team having moved a good distance away from his former rival. "That is a statement that worries me entirely too much. Can we just give him a bit of time to test that out and try to never have anyone else use it again afterward."

"I have no idea if you will die properly. You might end up still able to take over people using the mask centuries from now," Delta 2 said bluntly to counter that idea.

"Strangle, I think you need to not die anytime soon," Crusher rumbled. "As apparently the rest of us are all a bunch of dubiously alive abominations, and we need somebody to be the normal one."

\---

Alice looked over the mixture of mechanical devices and crystal like structures forming a ring around the area she was standing with one of the latest Shrine units. The fusion equipment had ended up requiring some of the limited supply of physical computer components, allowing Datamon to justify moving the setup inside of his lab facility. It had not been difficult to rebuild the device, and now they were simply waiting on her being ready for the changes.

"Are you sure you're up for this?" Absol asked her quietly. "Being Hackware is different." The original Hybrid was pacing around the outside of the ring while the others worked on the final unit in the adjacent room.

"Shrines aren't actually smart enough to equal Porygon," she replied calmly. "This is the best way we have of getting someone who can manipulate data well enough to take on DSS."

"I can learn. HackBiyomon is already having to start figuring that stuff out. We aren't at risk of being killed by DSS yet," he countered, his gruff voice sounding worried.

"Just tell me how bad it can be," Alice finally requested. "You're panicking, and we need to look collected when Datamon gets in here."

"She's free for now, but there is still the chance he gets the rest of us," the disaster pokemon said in a rush. "It will work, but that means that only a couple of grunts and the other pokemon won't want to go through with this. Then we're all digital, and he can work with that."

"And we can fight back better," she countered feeling strangely better about what came next. "That's why it has to be me first. Bob is the combat commander, he's not going for anything other than a Crab or Goliath. Anderson isn't settling for what we have now. I'm our best shot."

Any further discussion was cut off by the rest of Team Upload returning with the final machine. "Just a moment more, Alice," Anderson said sounding somewhat excited, which given how calm he typically acted was the equivalent of bouncing off the walls for a normal person.

"I have a Goliath ready if this works out," Bob said nodding at them. "Although the plan is to stick with just the two of us for a couple of days to make sure everything is working out alright."

HackBiyomon simply flapped to one of the larger crystal structures that was safe to perch on, the bird digimon staying quiet to avoid scrutiny by her master. The rest of the team gathered around the outer edge of the ring somewhat nervously as Datamon and Anderson assembled the connections and placed the machine. "Are you prepared miss Alice?" Datamon asked with his typical sinister smile.

"Yeah, let's do this," she said nodding at the Shrine, which mimicked the motion. The two of them moved to carefully marked out spots on the floor, and waited for the others to begin the process.

"Initializing," Anderson said starting the sequence. There was a sensation of rising energy around her, and she felt herself sliding towards the Shrine without deliberately moving. Alice didn't try and resist the movement or strange energy, even when she felt the Shrine come into contact with her body. The next few moments were confusing to the tech, with her senses seeming too much while her memories suddenly seemed barren and flat. She tried to clearly think through the event from the start, but there was a strange duality to the memories, with four different viewpoints being present instead of just the three she now felt.

Steadying herself with a bit of levitation she had her left secondary node check the changes to her body while the right node scanned the room for any dangers. Her main body was now mostly human still, with her larger prior form now only appearing as blocky square armor around her torso, lower legs, and forearms. Her head was covered with a square helmet shaped like the upper half of a normal Shrine with only her mouth exposed. Her secondary nodes were floating just behind either shoulder, their size decreased to match her smaller human stature and the placement reminding her of Absol's new wings.

It took fully processing just how she was thinking of her new appearance for her to realize that she was thinking differently, and another moment to realize she wasn't sure if the thoughts were from the human or the Shrine. Both sets of memories had a full continuity, blending together oddly at the point of the merger. The Shrine's thoughts were simple and clear compared to the human thoughts, while there was meaning and intelligence behind Alice's that her new thought process was also using heavily. "Um, I think I'm still me?" she questioned more than confirmed for the assembled watchers. "Mostly me? Uh, there were two mes before, but there's only me now and I'm not getting more confident here."

"I think it took a week for me," Absol replied sounding a bit wistful. "There wasn't much there, and I still got tripped up every time the part of me that was a Worm decided to just go through a wall. I'd make it, but halfway through I'd remember that I wasn't supposed to be the Worm and end up needing help to get the rest of the way."

"So just thinking these are normal is normal?" Alice asked making one of her secondary nodes bob in the air. The slight shift in its viewpoint was somewhat distracting as it moved up despite the other two parts of her body not moving.

"We have two examples so far," the pokemon nervously said. "That really isn't enough to call any part of it 'normal' yet."

\---

"Are you telling me that he's been half Ghost type pokemon the entire time?" Janice asked the group now that they were back from checking on how safe it was to give Jack the ability to understand pokemon.

"I've seen the mask they're talking about," Roberts said looking uneasily at his assistant. "I had a colleague take a discreet look at it once because it felt off to me. She said that it was fine as long as Jack was the only one who handled it. I simply assumed from how well tuned it was to him that he knew what it did and that whatever that was wasn't practical."

"I don't see what the problem is," Grant said sounding confused. Nobody seemed very surprised at his statement, and Kabutops led him off to the side to try to explain why normal humans didn't typically consider the idea of being able to just transform into a pokemon at will as something that was automatically good.

"She said that trying to get the part of my spirit that's inside of it back into my body is worse than leaving it there," Jack said deliberately not holding the item, as they had found he was always tempted to put it on if he had it in his hands. "Apparently the way they got it off me during the Ball turned that part all the way into a Decidueye, and it would change my body into one permanently if we did that."

"The worst part of all of this is that I've heard of the incident before. One of the trainers using 113 was helping out the local Ghosts with the event, and was rather shaken to have to deal with some foreign spirit trying to take over one of the visitors," the Troubleshooter Lead replied. "Having Shawn around to deal with our own issues helped a lot then. Gave me time to talk to the trainer without getting distracted by something going wrong here." She looked over at the Investigator seriously. "Well, your turn. What's your bad news?"

"I'm going to have to leave our latest non-human trainer in charge," Roberts admitted. "One of my superiors has informed me that an Upload Porygon has just happened to have been stolen, making it rather clear that they know who did it and think they are doing me a favor by not forcing me to find it." The room tensed up at this statement, and he moved to itch his new Stonescale's head. "So I need to explain why exactly this is an issue to them and deal with that problem. How many of these guys can you spare to help?"

"Eight, and they come with a vocally opinionated Hardware-Light," TyranoGazimon replied with some humor.

"Can we have a different one of the dinosaurs?" Salamence asked uncertainly. "We're already going to be making a scene on purpose, so 'opinionated' might not be the best."

"That's the only kind of them we've got," the patchwork digimon replied with a sinister smile. "At least the only ones riding herd on Stonescales that have received their patches. Miner versions as well, can't spare more of the soldiers that are safe to get into combat with pokemon."

\---

Bob had waited for the rest of the team to break up. Now it was just him and Alice at one of the benches outside of the main facility they had built. She had found a way to hide the most obvious parts of her transformation, the thick armor and floating crystals, but her eyes were now the common flat red that the other hybrids possessed, and likewise her nails were now made out of the crystal like material.

"So, how is it so far?" he asked curious. Datamon had decided that they needed to go over the information from the merger in detail before progressing with another. "Any of the issues the metal guy is worried about?"

"Datamon is an utter idiot," she replied sighing. "He talked about his plans to take us all over in front of me- In front of the Shrine." She then groaned and flopped down onto the bench. "I can remember everything it heard, all of his little speech about what he was doing to me to take me over."

"I think all things considered you're allowed to call yourself both now," Bob admitted with a bit of a laugh. "So they are smarter than we thought?"

"Oh no. They're actually dumber," Alice replied seriously. "I mean it, actually being able to hear them would have told me that alone, but the fusion was beyond even evolving into a Shrine with how much smarter it made me. Ugh, I mean how much smarter I am than the Hackware." She sat back up to look at him. "I, it, whatever, heard everything Datamon said, and didn't even process it beyond keeping a record for future analysis. They can't really think that much, and I was a Shrine before. The smartest of us other than hybrids. Which I am now." She sounded very confused.

"I'm going with an older Goliath," he admitted despite this. "Data manipulation is one thing, but for combat I'm going to need practical experience."

"Of course you are. Mom would be pissed you know," the other tech replied shaking her head. "I'm kinda feeling nervous without my secondary nodes out."

"We aren't trying to blend in, go ahead sis," Bob said shaking his head. She nodded and allowed the two small Hackware fragments to emerge out of her shoulders to float behind her. "Can you really see out of them?"

"More than just see, not having them out is really awkward." She shrugged with the two of them moving along with the motion. "Hackware really aren't used to not seeing all around ourselves."

"I guess I'll just have to get used to that too. Can't have the Crypt twins being too different after all."


	44. 2-1A Breakout

\--- Breakout ---

"I've found where they're keeping the captured Hackware," Alice said suddenly in the middle of preparations to combine the Goliath with Bob. She continued with "Shrine-" followed by a burst of static that made almost all of the non-Hackware flinch. "-has managed to send a distress signal with the information."

"I wish you had waited until we finished before trying to say their name," Bob complained. "They should keep at least long enough for us to do that, right?"

"Uh, what exactly did I say?" the other tech responded blinking. "Was that, did I just somehow say a sixty character designation out loud? In a reasonable time span?"

"It comes out as static to everyone else," Absol noted blandly. "That's why we try to only do that in the range that just Hackware seem to be able to hear."

"It is uncommon even among digimon to speak in that way," Datamon said looking with great interest at each of the Hybrids present. "Typically only highly mechanical examples are able to fully understand and speak it." The machine digimon then frowned. "We can recover the units DSS captured?"

"Yes, I should be able to easily break into the target area," Alice replied nodding. "It looks like the Shrine was able to trigger the digital world conversion from inside of a more conventional storage system. Given that and how this is going to be a direct attack on our enemies, I'd say we don't need to bother with the masking program."

"How long ago did they perform the conversion?" Anderson asked thoughtfully. "It might be a trap of some kind, given DSS has proven willing to take over other creatures."

"A few days ago. The other Hackware either weren't hearing the signal, or more likely did not understand what it means," the Shrine hybrid replied frowning. "Absol, did you hear a-" She proceeded to not say anything audible despite clearly continuing the statement.

"Uh, actually yes," the Wyrm hybrid confessed embarrassed. "I've been pretty confused about what is was though, mostly because it wasn't very clear."

"Wait, that was from the captured Hackware?" HackBiyomon asked confused. "I had thought it was just a weird sound the crystal towers were making."

"Suddenly I have entire lists of communications protocols that I need to go over with everyone," Alice said shaking her head. "Let's get Bob changed so we have some extra firepower for the attack."

\---

"I'm not sure I like this anymore," Jack chirped unhappily from the edge of the room. His team was currently standing ready for an attack in the new Dark Network digital world, with the circuitry dinosaurs nearby working on the continued project of repairing the various digital life forms guarding the site.

"Really, is it that much of a surprise that turning into a pokemon could be a problem?" Strangle hissed back still incredibly annoyed by his newly revealed Decidueye form.

"Huh? Oh shit," the trainer replied jumping up and looking over himself with a bit of horror. "No. No it wasn't that. I had somehow forgotten about that." For a moment he visibly considered removing his mask, then looked around at the many pokemon present he couldn't otherwise understand and lowered his wings. "The problem is this army of digimon we're leaving in this place to die for us."

"No part of the plan involves dying," the closest of the Hardware-Light units called out. "We have enough mons here to swap out as needed and are working on survivability."

"Uh, that is not a safe plan in the slightest," Vibration said quite certainly. "The pokemon who probably killed me was hurt very badly trying that plan. Admittedly not as badly as I was, but you guys aren't going to be in as safe of a battle as I was."

"Safer than just fighting to the death," the digital dinosaur replied somewhat jokingly. "Just because the plan doesn't involve dying doesn't mean that it won't happen, but we will be doing our best to minimize the chances." The circuit board creature then turned to look directly at the Flygon. "Wait, 'probably killed me'? You're dead?"

"Honestly, the snake is the only one left on our team that hasn't basically died before," Crusher rumbled. The Monochromon was vaguely looking over data on the control setup for the Dark Network Fragment. Gazimon had managed to rig her and TyranoGazimon to have basic access, although so far the Steel type had not found anything she felt was worth looking at in the highly limited selection of files. "Me and Smile are both reincarnated in different bodies, Vibes probably died and possessed his own corpse, and boss mon got eaten by a ghost and then took it over to survive."

"I just got turned into a Ghost type. Decidueye aren't actually dead," Jack complained. "I mean, I guess technically I'm a human and a Decidueye mask, but still."

"I still can't believe my trainer got his spirit split in half between his body and a piece of carved wood," Strangle complained. "How could the rest of you let that happen while I was gone?"

"Uh, the split isn't exactly half and half," Smile uneasily replied. Her Gourgeist teammate was looking unhappy with the entire discussion. "We kinda split his spirit off from his body entirely when we got the mask off before freeing him. It, um, might be the case that if he loses the mask for too long his human body will fall into a coma again."

"Uh, how much of me is in the mask?" the currently avian trainer asked, his feathers quite ruffled at this statement.

"Only 70 or 80 percent," the other ghostly plant sighed. "Enough of you is inside your body to say you are still alive, but probably not enough to actually operate without the mask on you. That's the real reason I'm not sure about trying to have other people wear it."

"So, I'm mostly a cursed mask," Jack said disappointed with the response. "I don't like how I keep forgetting about the mask. I either don't wear it and forget I have it, or I'm like this and forget that I'm wearing it at all."

"That sounds like a defense mechanism," the Hardware-Light said still reeling from the revelation that it was talking to the undead. "Kinda like how when you showed up here you kept trying to put it on whenever you remembered it was there, it could just be something the mask does to protect itself and keep you going."

"He kinda inherited that from the original cursed spirit," Vibration admitted while nodding in agreement. "Strangle isn't saying it, but we all forget about that mask whenever it isn't visible."

"We're still planning on heading into town, right?" Crusher grumbled trying to change the subject. "I still want to see more of this world, and it sounds like something human to do, so he can just keep the mask in a pocket or something."

\---

"I'm not actually that old, right?" Gazimon asked the patchwork digimon while Shawn's team helped Delta 2 with the current issue of having far too many digital life forms to fix. "I mean, you were around for Myotismon grabbing Devidramon, right?"

"No, that was how all the Gazimon older than us got themselves killed or turned into slaves for the network," TyranoGazimon replied shaking her head. "Thing is, from what I'd heard, even most of those digimon were not around before Datamon got captured."

"You didn't actually get any real training with using the Network, did you?" the now clearly much older digital monster asked looking disappointed. "A-0 we might be better off than I thought."

"You being old and her not getting trained means we're better off?" the Porygon-2 questioned from next to its sister, who was looking over a crate of supplies from the electronics manufacturing facility.

"Datamon thinks there isn't anyone who still knows how to use the more advanced stuff," Shawn guessed moving blocks of stone aside for his starter to cut to size. "If Tyra hasn't learned about how to do that stuff when she was trying to figure out medical modifications, then the average Gazimon probably couldn't do much of anything. Combine that experience with him being part Porygon now, and we have someone who can justify knowing a bit more, but is also expected to be in practice clueless."

"Pretty much. Datamon never thought much of anyone other than himself before the fight, and afterwards he was stuck managing the backbone of the Network," Gazimon confirmed sighing. "Most of the reference guides are from before the fight, with the few newer ones made by the smarter Gazi back when we were training younger Gazimon on the system. To be honest I was shit at actually using half that stuff before, and the best Gazi were only good enough that they had something they could do with each of the programs we had."

"So the plan is to make it look like you're trying everything a little bit so it looks like you are just messing with things you don't understand," Delta 2 said, shaking her head at the digimon's confirming nod. "Right, that sounds like the kind of plan one of my siblings makes. Given how good you've gotten with panes I'm half tempted to just call you another brother, or perhaps cousin."

"We've already claimed him," Serperior replied to this jokingly. "He's the member of our family that is not snake or plant."

"Cousin it is then," the Chansey shaped Porygon replied, causing both of the snake twins to stumble a bit at the implication that they were also family.

A black pane suddenly opened next to Gazimon, taking his focus and sending his teammates into alert stances. "Damn, they just formed a node inside an already existing digital world," the digimon noted looking over the details. "Uh, A-0, isn't this address where we've been keeping the captured Hackware?"

"Yes, yes it is. How long has it been a digital world?" A-0 responded angrily. "We need to get moving."

\---

Bob's body wasn't much different from Alice's after his own transformation. His armored form differed in that he was notably more angular, much like a Goliath's shape was more complex than a Shrine's. The armor around his arms and legs was larger, covering the limbs entirely with claw like structures that ended in points. This was concerning with his feet, which did not seem like they would fit into the pointed shapes despite being present when he had the armor retracted. He also lacked the secondary nodes, but given those were unique to Shrines nobody had expected him to have them.

The world they arrived inside of was clearly a prison complex, and a quite advanced one at that. Automated turrets, energy fields reinforcing metal bars, and a four foot drop right below the non-secured entry location. Bob quickly braced himself in a way he was familiar with from prior combat experience. "Uh, how many legs do I have right now?" he had to ask after hitting the floor as he remembered that all of his prior combat experience was as four legged creatures.

"Four somehow, all really pointy," Alice said still simply floating in the air. "Glad we didn't bring any humans along," she continued in an absentminded way. "I just actually said that didn't I?"

"You two can at least still look like humans," HackBiyomon complained while looking over the normal Hackware they had brought along. "So are we going to actually get back more Hackware than we lose here, or is this just to make sure they don't have any?"

"Our goal is to get the others out," Bob said slipping more into his Goliath originating thoughts again. It wasn't as entertaining to experience first hand as it had been to watch Absol and Alice deal with. "We just probably aren't that lucky all things considered."

The group moved quickly towards a clear signal they could all sense from other Hackware present. Bob found himself striking at the energy blast firing turrets fairly automatically, with Alice similarly blocking any that were given time to start shooting using glowing barriers. Very soon after they located the specific part that the others were kept inside of, and found that the contained Hackware had already broken themselves out of the cells themselves, but not out of the larger block that they were all stored in. "Right, everyone get ready to go. This place has one of the better transport blocks we've seen, and it might take me a moment to get us a way out," Alice told the group of prisoners.

"Then let's just head back to the entrance," HackBiyomon said pointing back the way they had come from. She did so just in time for them to all spot the arrival of the DSS forces.

"Damn humans, can't you just let us escape in peace!" Bob shouted tired of the continued issues with simply getting out of the mess Thomas had led Upload into.

"Uh, I'm not sure I entirely count as human all things considered," the red eyed trainer replied, and the Hackware all had a chance to notice that he was the only close to human creature present now. The Investigator was not there, and his assistant's team had seemed to have replaced their own trainer with a bird pokemon. "Long story, involves body swapping and transformation."

"Seriously?" the female Serperior asked looking their group over. "Can anyone involved with this mess just stay human?"

"Stalling isn't going to help," Alice transmitted over Hackware communication. "I'll need them distracted to get a bit of a gap in their own protections to get us out of here."

"Stalling is a distraction," their avian teammate suggested over the same method. "How did he end up a bird?" she asked aloud pointing towards their brown and green foe.

"Every member of my current team except my starter and including myself can honestly say they are what they are because they died before," the really creepy bird monster said in an appropriately dead voice.

"I take it back, stalling is not a good plan," HackBiyomon rightly conceded before evolving. HackSaberdramon then flared her wings and sent off a harsh sound that caused all of the non-Hackware present to flinch slightly.

"I'm hitting the system's blocks, if we take those out I can get us out of here," Alice said activating a program that produced a pattern of reactions from various places around the cell block. The massive bird digimon then made a slashing pass over their foes, trailing a swarm of attacking Dos behind her. "Right, highlighting the key nodes. Bob, take those out and I think I can get us out of here." A number of devices embedded in the walls were then outlined in Hackware red in his vision.

\---

"They lost two more Goliath to get back the first one we captured along with the Stones and Shrine we had," A-0 informed Janice when they got back. "All the other captured Hackware were either destroyed, or lost in the mess that they brought along with them. Maybe the ones captured were destroyed, maybe just the ones they brought with them, probably a mix of the two."

"The Biyomon's giant bird form was different than normal," Gazimon added picking at a slash mark in his fur from said bird's talons. "Made of polygons instead of fire, and going a bit more for hitting people with her claws instead of sending the stuff she's made of to fly at you."

"Can we not gloss over the fact that we're now dealing with Upload turning their humans into digimon?" Crusher complained. "I'm still not used to being around humans at all yet, let alone them evolving all the time."

"We aren't," Janice replied sighing. "It is a logical escalation on their part that I for one have been dreading ever since we saw their Absol. The main threat from the Hackware is their ability to manipulate data while still being able to fight at a notably higher level than the average pokemon. Am I right in guessing that the former is how they got out of a world secure enough that they needed to break in to free the others?"

"The Shrine hybrid was able to coordinate the Worms present into bypassing my block while the Goliath hybrid targeted the structural components of the local area that were maintaining the normal transport block," A-0 confirmed. "Combined with how we definitely want the hybrids captured it is a major loss on our part. Honestly, having another trainer turned pokemon is more of a liability for us than anything."

"It really is," Jack agreed, once more human with his mask firmly put away. "I wasn't any help at all as a trainer like that, and I don't know how to fight without risking killing someone."

"Then the simple answer is that you don't use it," Quagsire noted. "I'm still having some trouble getting that done with Grant, but he can't go back to being human right now." The Armaldo nodded in agreement. "And now that's a bigger problem for me because he's going to be excited about fighting them now."

"I'll work with him about it," Kabutops said to his teammate poking the other fossil pokemon with a claw.

"The fact that they didn't bother hiding this attack sadly means I'm not going to get as much out of it," Gazimon said shaking his head. "I'm probably going to just scrap the node for parts."

"Right," Janice said looking over the report she was filling out regarding the attack. "Shawn, have A-0 and Gazimon go over the containment site. Dismantle the node, and see if there is anything else in there Gazi can use to help track them or that A-0 can make to help keep them from escaping." She turned to the Investigator's Assistant. "Jack, go to town, be normal for a bit. We have two lists for our stuff ready, and we've called ahead about them. Pick those up, and get what you need." Finally she shifted to look at the Armaldo. "Grant, I want your team to start preparing to try and actively capture any of our enemies instead of just killing them. If they've tried to get them back once they might do it again, giving us more chances to catch them. Not to mention that you need the most experience with non-lethal combat right now."

\---

"This is a lot more survivors than I expected," Absol noted once the other hybrids got back, the pokemon carefully going over the state of his friends.

"I wish Sora had talked more with Biyomon about what fighting was like," HackBiyomon complained quietly. "Being big and dangerous is a lot different than I'd thought."

"I can agree with that," Bob said tapping forward on four pointy legs. "Also I want to apologize for laughing at the wall thing."

"I remember you having human legs at one point after your merger," the disaster pokemon noted while uneasily shifting his claw-wings. "Doesn't that feel kinda weird?"

"If you all are quite done staring at each other I'd like to go over the information on possible targets," Datamon cut in from nearby, simultaneously revealing that he had not heard any of them talking. His now free assistant smiled discreetly at the revelation.

"We should go over the improvements to performance we can get out of this first," Alice said to the digimon clearly. "I think I have some ideas on how we can improve the mask now that I can get a better look at how other Shrines have been doing things."

\---

Jack walked into town alongside his Monochromon, the trainer quickly apologizing for bumping into a pair of young trainers while getting her larger form through a small crowd by the market area. "Is it okay for me to talk here?" Crusher asked while looking at the various pokemon also walking around with their trainers.

"It should be fine," he replied despite her words attracting attention from those close to them. "You're out to see what the world is like, and being able to ask questions is important to that." Many of the watchers nodded in agreement to the sentiment. "How about we try and find something to snack on while we are here?"

This brought a number of suggestions on what to get, that only became more detailed when the digimon confessed to having not tried many of the local foods before. This led to not just the armored digimon, but also a number of other rare or foreign pokemon and trainers starting a bit of a taste testing of the available local specialties. This was a welcome distraction for Jack, and he felt the best introduction to his world he could give to Crusher.

It did, however, slow down their progress greatly. This only became a greater problem when an Aron's trainer came forward with a number of questions on raising Steel types, having easily spotted the metal plates along the large digimon's back. Jack had plenty of advice, although it rapidly became the other trainer and the Monochromon both taking turns asking questions as they slowly made their way past a number of stalls towards the Poke Mart.

Jack was simply glad the others were in their pokeballs for the trip, as he was having a hard enough time not getting too distracted without Smile looking nostalgically at things or Vibration looking at things with honest curiosity. Strangle had always been too serious for that kind of thing, which meant that instead she'd try and drag everyone along further while sighing about her brother and his trainer wandering around and causing problems

"So, you two are new workers at DSS?" one of the locals asked dubiously just as they reached the Mart's doors.

"We are actually investigators working with DSS on tracking down some criminals," Jack said to clarify. "Although one of their Troubleshooters did grow up in my hometown." Their reaction was honestly predictable. "Yes, Shawn has always been like that," he had to say with great sympathy.

"I take it you're here so he doesn't have to be?" was the joking reply to this confession.

"And to get away from the madness for a little while," he agreed nodding.

From there Crusher wasn't really able to fit into the store itself easily, although it did turn out there was a spot just inside the entrance for larger pokemon to stand while their trainer looked for specific items they needed. After a bit of discussion it was decided to wait for the Onyx's trainer to be done so they could take a turn at using that space, and while waiting he would be able to get the lists of items DSS had sent them with.

He was starting to feel a bit tired by the time they were allowed to use the space. Inside they quickly were able to find a brand of scale and metal care products that had worked well enough for his team in the past to be worth at least trying with Crusher, pointing out why he had preferred them to the Aron's trainer and getting some technical details out of another trainer who was more educated in metalworking. Somewhat more reluctantly he looked over the small variety of Ghost type items present, noticing a familiar unease with some of the items for repelling spiritual pokemon that now made a lot more sense. Avoiding those he did find a few items for both his team members of that type, and likely for himself as well.

They proceeded to pay for the various items and make their way out of the store, with another trainer thanking them for the information on the large pokemon waiting spot as they left. From there it was a much faster trip back to the lab as there was less need to look around and most of the people had already encountered the rare case of a talking monster before.

Arriving back at the entrance Jack was glad to see Grant's team was also heading inside, and were more than willing to help carry the purchases inside. Which helped immensely when the currently human trainer passed out suddenly.

\---

Jim and Sam were both in a bit of trouble. Their last attempt at the Grim Gym had been another failure, and they were currently a bit short on cash to re-try with the bits of advice they had managed to get from the Leader in the face of those defeats.

"Think it is worth anything?" Sam asked of the wooden bird pokemon mask he had managed to lift off the Steel type's trainer. There was a slightly ominous air to the item that made Jim wish they had at minimum tried to rob someone else.

"To someone probably," his friend had to admit nervously. "To anyone we could sell it to, probably not." They were sitting in their tent just outside of town, not too far from the region's big storage company.

"Yeah," the other trainer agreed sadly. "Still, looks kinds neat." Then Sam proceeded to do something so clearly stupid that Jim could only assume was because of the strange mask's influence, he tried to put the thing on.

There was a sudden strange flash as Sam's body suddenly twisted into the form of a large brown and green bird pokemon. "What?" the resulting avian asked in a tone that did not match the transformed trainer's at all. "Wasn't I at the lab?" the talking pokemon asked confused before looking over at Jim. "Hey, aren't you one of the trainers who I ran into earlier?"

Jim simply froze in response to this question, realizing that the creature was apparently somehow linked to the mask's owner. "You are," the bird pokemon said angrily. "You stole me from me!"

"What?" the thieving trainer had to ask of that nonsensical statement.

"My mask! You stole my mask from me," the bird pokemon argued unhappily. "Where did your friend-" it then began to ask before trailing off. "Your friend put me on, didn't he?"

The trainer they had run into had been possessed by a mask, and now it had taken over Sam. "What, what were you doing with the other trainer?" Jim asked while he considered trying to take the mask off his friend.

"Other? I got turned into a mask during the Masquerade Ball. I need to keep it with me or apparently I pass out when it is taken from me," the pokemon complained. "Ugh, this is going to be a mess to explain to Rob." Jim made a move for his pokeballs, only to find himself suddenly pinned in place with a glowing purple arrow. "That is, Investigator Roberts, my boss. Because I'm in the middle of going after a far more serious criminal threat than two pickpockets that just accidentally stole me."

\---

"Where is his mask?" Strangle the Serperior asked wrapped around her newest teammate tightly. The group was outside the lab with Shawn's team while the rest of the DSS Troubleshooters did what they could for the comatose trainer's body.

"Sis, please don't choke Crusher," Shawn said dryly. "She can't answer you if she can't breathe."

"Ugh, probably pick-pocketed," the Monochromon rumbled sounding only slightly inconvenienced by the starter. "There were these two guys we ended up bumping early on, but I had Jack check his stuff afterward."

"Which means that the mask that makes us forget about it probably was overlooked," Vibration noted unhappily. "Can you find them again?"

"This nose isn't made for that kind of thing," Crusher complained unhappily. "First bad thing about the changes I've seen."

Angry grumbling then interrupted their discussion as Jack's Decidueye form suddenly emerged from the woods forcing a trainer along, with a belt of pokeballs firmly grasped in his wing. "Stealing me!" the bird pokemon chirped sounding notably less human than was typical for that form of the trainer. "I'm not even valuable! I'm a cursed mask, nobody wants to buy a cursed mask."

"Jack!" the female Serperior shouted leaping off Crusher and coiling around the obviously terrified unknown trainer. "How did you manage to get your mask stolen?"

"I didn't even know it was gone, Strangle. It was right when we got to the marketplace," the bird pokemon replied. "Can this wait until I get off this guy? I don't like possessing people very much. Also I want to be human again, that sounds very nice right now."

"You were supposed to stay human the entire time," she complained while turning to glare at the human she was wrapped around threateningly.

"Normal humans can't understand you, remember?" Crusher rumbled from behind those two, making both tense at the large digimon's sudden presence. "You're wrapped around this guy and hissing like mad, and he might think you're not yelling at Jack."

"That is probably a bit on purpose," the Decidueye noted sighing. "Most pokemon like to use the fact that humans can't understand us normally to get away with odd things."

"One reason I don't like being able to talk now," Serperior said arriving with Shawn. "Now, who do we have here?"

"Jim, my name is Jim," the petrified trainer said haltingly. "The mask is on my friend Sam. This was all his idea!"

"Shawn Reading," the Troubleshooter and closest to human of the group introduced himself, causing the trainer to pale further at the red serpentine glare being directed with the statement. "Congratulations on kidnapping a member of a law enforcement team."

\---

Sam watched with a great deal of horror as the wooden mask just taken off his own face was put onto the now unconscious trainer he had stolen it from. Not that having the mask twist and control his own body had been much better, but seeing how losing the mask had been just as bad for the other trainer was not helping very much.

The Decidueye shaped mask, and Sam did not want to think too hard about how he learned what pokemon it was of, was simply placed onto the other trainer's chest. "Ah!" they suddenly said as the wood came into contact with their body. "I'm up. Awake. Did it work, or am I on someone else again?" the investigator asked grabbing at the mask nervously. "Oh, human again."

"You aren't just taken over by the mask right now, are you?" Jim asked from nearby sounding appropriately frightened.

"The long story is that he was nearly taken over by the original cursed spirit of the mask, but got stuck in it after that Decidueye was defeated," the machine in the center of the room said apparently in response to the female Serperior's hissing. "Only part of him got put back into his body, so when some people decide to steal the mask he end up passing out on us a few hours later." Her red slit eyes had not left Sam the entire time.

"The really scary part is that when I was possessing your friend it really didn't feel all that different than when I'm using my mask to turn into a Decidueye myself." The investigator shook his head while standing up, considering the mask for a moment, and then cautiously putting it on. Seeing what was likely the exact same pokemon that his own body had been twisted into appear was slightly worse with the lack of difference in stance compared to the human that had been standing there before. "See, this doesn't feel too different."

"That shouldn't feel normal," Sam insisted remembering the sensation. "I can remember everything, and it was the strangest thing I've ever experienced."

"Did it feel like you were the one doing everything, and you knew exactly why you were doing each of the things despite not being the one in charge?" the fossil pokemon standing at one edge of the room asked, this time the pokemon speaking clearly. At Sam's wide eyed stare the pokemon continued to clearly describe the sensation of having your body controlled by another creature.

"We have to worry about this kid learning to shoot arrows now don't we?" a strange looking rabbit like pokemon asked leaning against a computer console.

"Given he looks like he is agreeing with Kabutops on what it felt like? Yeah, we will need to worry he's picked up some Grass type moves," the woman who was ignoring everyone in favor of her personal console noted dully.

Sam for a brief instant felt the phantom prickling of soon-to-be-arrow feathers on his skin. "Yeah, that's kind of how I ended up like this isn't it?" the Decidueye asked sadly. "I'm really sorry about that part of this, but you did steal me."

Terrified Sam looked over to the other human trainer still present, flinching at the unnatural red slit eyes. "I don't want to be a bird," he said shaking a bit.

"Don't worry too much about it and avoid anything weird happening to you," the local mad trainer said not sounding very confident about success. "Honestly, the less you pay attention to it the more likely it will just go away."

\---

The local Officer Jenny was muttering dark things under her breath as she led the two away a bit later. Jack was awkwardly avoiding his teammates as best he could with how worried they had ended up, Shawn's entire team had left again to deal with the Dark Network issues, and Quagsire had left Kabutops in charge of her team due to the world going a bit too crazy for her.

"How much were you able to access his thoughts and memories while you were controlling him?" the LAS asked while closely scanning the Decidueye.

"Any amount was too much in my opinion, but given it is you asking I'm betting that is a practical question. It was odd, because I could know things he knew if I concentrated on them, but it was kinda like asking him questions without words," the Investigator's Assistant replied unhappily. "It was also a lot harder to think like a human does while on him. Maybe because I didn't have my own body to get that information from?"

"That sound like it could be the case," Kabutops agreed. "You were acting very birdy when you came in controlling that guy." The fossil pokemon looked over the Grass/Ghost pokemon thoughtfully. "Right, I want to try wearing it. I've been controlled by LAS before, so I can compare it to then."

Extremely reluctantly Jack removed his mask, returning to human in the process, and then after a false start handed it to the pokemon. The fossil pokemon looked over the wooden item for a moment, apparently considering how his head was actually shaped only now that he had the item. He eventually simply set it horizontally along the flat top, and this turned out to work just fine. Kabutops' form rapidly changed into Jack's Decidueye shape, and Jack's human body immediately fell unconscious again.

"Really?" the bird pokemon asked, his voice once again less human sounding, although now with a hint of Kabutops' own voice. "That is all it takes for me to go into a coma?"

"It appears that there is simply not enough of you inside your human form to use it actively. Likely there is still some connection between it and your mask form as long as you are not possessing another creature," the LAS replied. The Decidueye sighed at this and removed the mask a bit awkwardly, with Kabutops quickly passing it back to the human form to revive Jack. "I would rather not elaborate on which specific parts of you remain active while in that state."

"I don't like the idea of giving this bad news to Rob while he's off dealing with the rest of the mess that is going on with the Porygon we've already captured," Jack said while clearly considering putting the mask on again.

"We can put it in with the rest of today's bad news for him," Janice replied looking over to her pokemon.

"Log files indicate that internal access codes were provided on three occasions during the last five days to retrieve Stone class Hackware from the prison system," Metagross noted with dull annoyance. "There is no official records relating to these incidents in the associated systems. The codes used match the source of the ones that resulted in the theft of the Upload Porygon."

"Strangely enough, them getting started on breaking out stopped them from being stolen by someone else," the Troubleshooter Lead clarified. "Which means we probably aren't getting Investigator Roberts back anytime soon."


	45. 2-1B Information Raid

\--- Information Raid ---

Datamon eagerly looked over the data produced during the fusion process. It was exactly what he needed to get his revenge, a way of more thoroughly controlling existing digimon and other creatures while at the same time providing them with more capabilities. Even the combat form merger had resulted in a far more capable result, let alone HackBiyomon's example of what was possible with actual digimon. Along with the construction ability and digital world generation capacity they were the perfect self replicating army to remake his original digital world in his image, and make sure that Etemon was as forgotten as Datamon's own memories.

The data the locals had was the downside of the situation. Quite honestly the Porygon-Z-mon was at minimum a Champion, if not an Ultimate in practice when you took into account the sheer control over the world it possessed, regardless of how fragile its body was. The chaotic creature was the result of terrible research into digital life forms that could only happen with both easy access to primitive digital worlds and technological capabilities that even Datamon had never possessed. The longer he remained in this set of worlds, the greater risk he was at, so he needed to get out.

However, it also provided a number of already extant ways to get exactly what he wanted. Long range teleportation technology was known to this world for so long that even ancient ruins featured devices capable of the task. He had not located a good source for the devices yet, but he had located a research library that was listed as the source of some of the documents regarding those technologies.

A quick data transmission brought his loyal assistant into the room, the bird digimon now fully confident in her new form. "Yes master?" she asked more clearly than before, a welcome improvement if she was going to act as independently as it appeared would be the case going forward.

"I have another target for us, and another mission for you specifically," he told her nodding. She froze entirely as was appropriate for receiving orders. "This information is my goal, it is fine if the others collect it as well, but you are to ensure that it is collected for my own use. This must be done before you leave the target."

"Yes, master," she replied nodding and allowing him to transfer the data into her personal storage.

\---

"The Porygon have been moved to another holding facility, and additional checks are being done now for everyone involved," Roberts told them over the phone after Jack had finished updating the Investigator on what they had discovered in the breakout and subsequent theft/kidnapping. "The main reason I'm not being looked at too heavily is that your group already had digital world creation technology and Porygon of your own."

"We have managed to track the path of the one that already has been taken," Salamence added with a sigh. "On one hand it is nice to be able to help with this kind of thing, but on the other I really wish someone who had a better idea of how to work this stuff was here along with us." The dragon looked thoughtfully at A-0, then turned to her trainer. "Maybe it would be okay to have them look at the data I'm gathering to see if they can help?"

"Probably not right now at least," Janice cautioned the LAS hybrid. "We are already a bit overworked on the analysis front from the stuff Gazimon is pulling out of the Dark Network."

"He found part of his personal collection of 'interesting stuff'," TyranoGazimon added in the middle of reading some digimon analysis information recovered from that source. "Which now that I actually can see it makes me really worried about you old man. A lot of this stuff is the kind of thing Myotismon and the other big names would probably have offed you for knowing. You got lucky that the boss monkey didn't care too much about that kind of thing to pay attention to you."

"He was having Datamon go over that stuff before the fight," Gazimon replied sighing at the dig regarding his age. "Afterward the rest of us were supposed to pick up the slack, at least those of us around back then. I liked reading through the stuff, even if I didn't understand any of technical details at the time, but most of the rest of us didn't care enough so he gave up on it."

"Let me guess, the few that did care ended up dead rather quickly?" Crusher rumbled shaking her head, getting a sarcastic laugh that was clearly an agreement.

"Not to mention that I don't want to be sending that data around right now," Roberts told his pokemon. "Some of it is rather sensitive, and with the shakeup going on we're going to be looked at more closely going forward as well."

"So it will be a while before you can get back here?" Jack asked, currently in his Decidueye form as part of the explanation of events. Strangle was looped around him with the same upset expression that she had been wearing since the discovery of that complication. "I'm still a bit uneasy about this mask thing, and being basically in charge of the investigation side of things isn't helping much."

Three of the four faces on the other end of the video line flinched, with the Stonescale continuing to simply look at everything with dull curiosity. "That is actually the bad news," Roberts replied with embarrassment. "You aren't 'basically' in charge of the Upload investigation, as of now you are officially in charge of the ongoing Upload situation while I deal with the wider digital world developments. Mostly due to the reduction in numbers down to less than a dozen humans, and that was before they apparently decided to stop being entirely human." The older man then looked nervously at his assistant's currently beaked face. "Not that not being entirely human should be a problem."

"I really wish he had a better claim to being human than he does," Strangle noted dully. "We've checked the stuff Grant used, and if this gets out then even when he's not wearing the mask there are places that will simply consider him just a pokemon."

"Rare places," Quagsire responded a touch sharply. "Most regions simply don't have anything about it, and the few places with that kind of restriction would give that same classification to anyone who can get caught in a pokeball. There are perfectly normal humans by any other standard that have that same issue."

"Not to mention he's at least as human as I am," Shawn added, then looked thoughtfully at his own starter. "Or possibly as human as Serperior at the moment, but we have it on good authority that is about the same thing."

Gazimon looked like he was about to reply, but cut off before he even said a word. "Damn, another attack. Masked this time," he said turning to Metagross and giving the location. "Any luck with them missing something?"

"The site is a research data library system's main data storage," the Steel/Psychic replied opening data files on Janice's console. "Data security barely present due to low risk of target data. Memory and power usage chart is highly variable due to age of system, standard check not possible."

"Not that they have an item storage system involved here," Janice complained looking at the result. "Just data, unless Upload tries to delete anything they are just copying information. There isn't even a clear connection to digital worlds like with the attack on the Z containment site. Finding a reason to go there without other evidence is going to be an issue."

The group looked thoughtfully at the various pieces of information, Investigator Roberts momentarily forgotten. "Can we do anything about it without giving up the advantage we've got here?" he asked still on the line.

"I can try and use the node restrictions they are using here to track their main base down better," Gazimon replied after a moment of thought. "If we can afford to let them have their way with this place for a while I might even get enough data to finish that part of breaking into there."

"It is an archival site, if they did anything permanent to the data then we could notice that and use it to justify a counterattack," Janice replied looking over more data regarding the target. "Honestly it should only have large amounts of general information there. More stuff than they could get if they were going for data at any other single site, but the more detailed parts that actually would give them an advantage is going to only be at another location."

"They're looking for targets," Jack realized. "They have an idea of what they need to get, but need to find where exactly the information is."

"Then we might want them to take their time," the purple furred rabbit monster noted with a harsh smile. "If it goes on long enough I can trace their base now, and we can then get started on the plan to take them out for good while they're still working on whatever they want to attack."

\---

HackSaberdramon spread her swarm of Dos out across the data nodes of their latest target, using the smaller creatures to access the systems for her. The tiny Hackware were strangely similar to the flames that a normal Saberdramon would have, becoming unstable rapidly if left outside of contact with her control. They could easily integrate with existing swarms of Dos, and any individual units she received from those swarms seemed a bit more stable and longer lasting.

Their latest target had changed into a massive library, with small computer consoles spread across the entire place. Even the books present were less collections of pages, and more data storage devices that were in the shape of books. On one talon they had not found any threats, and the improved masking program seemed to be holding, but on the other the data was scattered far more thoroughly than any of them had apparently seen before. "What all are we looking for here?" she asked the others, deliberately ignoring the progress of Datamon's program. It wasn't going well due to the complexity of the local file system.

Alice and Bob were both in their now normal armored forms, while the two grunts with them were still normal humans for the time being. The Shrine hybrid was leading her line of Hackware in going after the main computer systems, the Goliath hybrid and his Hackware were standing ready in case the mask fell, and the humans were doing their best to use what reference guides were present to find critical information along with their pokemon. "Probably a lot of this stuff actually," Absol said from the doorway of one of a few higher security rooms he was checking with his Worm and Wyrm class Hackware. "We need to replace the holes in our current set of references."

"This is a total mess though," Alice complained drooping her secondary nodes. "At this rate we might as well just copy everything and sort it later when we aren't risking the masking program breaking on us." The others simply grumbled in agreement and continued their work.

"It is holding stable," the bird digimon noted with some annoyance. "Still, I remember that Gazimon breaking through a door long before the estimate I had for how long they would take." She then looked over at the Dark Network Node thoughtfully. Then, after carefully checking if Datamon was actively scanning it and finding he had not been, she removed their internal conversations from the logs and began to actively filter out anything they wouldn't want the machine digimon to know. "Not to mention we still need to find what the metal jerk wants us to get."

\---

A short time later Absol stopped and looked around worried. One of the better possible targets they might have taken on later had just vanished from his disaster sense. "I'm losing paths," he commented aloud, an unusual case of him actually talking about the details of his disaster predictions. "Not all good or all bad, but still I'm losing options without anything happening."

"It isn't because of the data we're collecting?" HackSaberdramon asked moving along to another pair of shelves trailing Dos. The bird digimon was covering almost as much ground as Alice's organized group of Stones.

"No, that is widening our options in what locations we can attempt," he replied frowning and taking a moment to check for a pattern among the changes. A set of six targets then vanished from around four raids down the line. "This is closer to losing out on later options the longer we are here." His eyes then dramatically widened as he realized what he was seeing. "They're tracking us."

"What," Bob responded sending the combat Hackware into a small frenzy to protect them from any incoming attack. "When are they inbound?"

"You mean that they are tracking down the main base," HackSaberdramon said darkly, her Dos losing their place in the download process. "The longer we are in here, the closer they get to finishing us off. Why didn't that show up as a disaster for you? It seems like we should be able to get something out of them trying that."

"For the same reason a river wearing away at a cliff face doesn't count until the rock slide is actually going to happen," he clarified for the others. "It is a process that leads to disaster rather than the event itself. My father focused on that sort of thing, so I know that it is possible to sense it, but the average Absol couldn't spot it."

"Slow and indirect," one of the grunts complained clearly getting the idea. "It ends up causing the problem, but not in an immediate way."

Absol nodded and ran a check on how far forward the effect was currently hitting him. "Half an hour," he said now shaking his head. "At the current rate in half an hour we lose all possible future attacks."

"That isn't enough time," Alice said faintly. "What are our options here? What do we have that's still there?"

"Datamon cannot hear us," the bird digimon informed the others calmly. "How long will it take to get what he wants?" She then shifted back to grabbing data while he concentrated on the outcomes.

It wasn't looking great, as the soonest they could leave without having a disaster of a debriefing with Datamon was twenty minutes. If he spent six minutes going over outcomes then they could grab that data specifically, but doing so still took four minutes and they would also only be getting the bastard's data if they went that route. Not to mention that followup targets were rarely worth it if they only got a couple more before they were hit.

Refocusing he instead looked at the long term outcomes that were still available in the time period after DSS discovering their main base. The results were easily sorted into three categories, Datamon winning, them escaping, and strangely the least common being their capture by the authorities. Which did not tell him it was the least likely, as how commonly he found disasters relating to an event wasn't necessarily the same as how likely the event was.

"We grab everything," Absol finally said after considering these possibilities. "Every last bit of data this place has, as long as DSS lets us. Then as soon as we get back we get ready for one last attempt to run."

"You mean the big one," Alice said disappointed with the response.

"Yes, with the new device creation abilities we can make use of this information more easily in that case," the canine confirmed. "Datamon will not be happy with what we can get in time, so that is our only option left."

\---

Quagsire decided that her team wasn't all that needed to wait around for Gazimon to finish doing whatever he was doing. The older Troubleshooter team and patchwork digimon seemed to understand that side of things more than enough to handle the issue, and careful scans showed that Upload had everyone working on their 'hidden' attack already. Jack's mess was something her team was technically well suited to help with, but honestly he still had more humans than she did all things considered.

So she was taking initiative and working out just what her team specifically was going to do during this big raid everyone knew was just a matter of time. The best place to do that seemed to be Box 45, where they had access to a few training facilities if they asked nicely, and a friendly digital god to maybe give them some useful improvements if it came to that sort of thing.

"So, honest question here, can Gazimon actually pull the things he's doing off?" Dugtrio asked Tyranomon as they assembled in a good sized square area of the flat terrain of the Box that was a small amount lower than the typical ground level to mark out a battle arena.

"Sadly I was never taught how to use such things," the digital dinosaur informed his teammate. "He is more confident in it than any other Gazimon I have seen before, but how much of that is a side effect of his own transformation I cannot tell."

"Are either of the other two closer to normal?" Kabutops asked squaring up against Grant. The former human enjoying fighting the most out of the entire team.

"Hmm. The Monochromon has the arrogance of one that feels it is in a position of power, and the other one is acting as a minion to someone who scares her," Tyranomon replied thoughtfully. "Both of them are in a better state than is typical, which might actually say more about how bad Gazimon have things back in our world."

"Are things better for Tyranomon?" Quagsire asked looking over the digimon. "Gazimon always says that he likes this world so much better, I have to admit I'm a bit worried about sending you back when this is all over."

"I like to think so," he replied quietly. "At least before the dark forces took over at least. Although, as I said, I'm as old as Gazimon, and we both are younger than that on our current life. I cannot really recall the one before, but I do remember peaceful times with the other Tyranomon."

"So step one is figuring out if those dark guys are still in charge when we can go there?" Grant asked frowning. "I'm not sure we can get enough help to reconquer an entire world."

Quagsire sighed loudly. "No matter how much you want to go home, I have to ask that you please do not put us into a situation where we end up needing to conquer an inhabited world," she cautiously informed the digimon. "Ugh, I'd rather go back to the peace and quiet of hunting down fossils and training revived ones again myself."

"I must admit the possibility has occurred to me as well. I do not know if the Digidestined will be able to defeat the darkness themselves, and even if they could how far along they would be at that task is an open question," Tyranomon agreed sadly. "As an alternative I would like to look into the possibilities I have in this world. To see if there is anywhere here that a truly peaceful location could be found."

"Your best bet for that is someplace that does ranch style pokemon storage for trainers," Alpha 45 said floating over suddenly, apparently having heard the question. "Technically that is what the Box system is in practice, but I think I should be clear that there are places other than DSS who have things like this. Maybe one of my family's digital worlds will work for you, but it also might be the case that someone else has a better situation for you."

"Do you guys just listen to every conversation that happens, or is this special treatment?" Dugtrio asked in a joking tone while the rest of their team finished reacting to the sudden appearance of the Administrator.

"We do actually. It is one thing we do differently that is both better than a normal pokemon ranch in some ways, but worse in others. Most of us don't spend a whole lot of time or effort on actually listening to all of them," the Porygon-2 informed them. "Even just a dozen pokemon leads to a massive amount of information really quickly, and we already have more to deal with than you would expect. So a bit of both in practice, as while I am always able to listen your group being here was the kind of thing that I wanted to pay attention towards."

"Strong Psychic types that work at ranches tend to do that same thing," Quagsire noted nodding, having been the only one to not be surprised by Alpha 45. "At least in the cases where the ranch owners have one available. My parents lived in one like that."

"I must admit that what I've seen of these worlds is interesting, however even inside of them I see many cases of the inhabitants fighting amongst each other," the dinosaur said sadly. "I guess I can faintly recall some play fighting among the others in my past lives, but there is a difference here."

"We'll find something," Kabutops attempted to reassure him.

\---

Adrian sighed as his Murkrow landed on the reptile like helmet that was part of his new head. "I for one am a bit tired of running from the law," she complained, his new form allowing him to understand her. His body was now radically altered by the fusion with one of the latest Wyrm class Hackware. The helmet portion was large enough that it was easy to miss the small area around his mouth that was still visibly human, unlike Alice his hands were armored complete with harsh reptilian claws, and his back was adorned with the same claw like wings Absol now possessed. However, all of that was minor compared to how his torso now led to a good sized serpentine body instead of a pelvis with legs.

"I have to agree," he told his pokemon tiredly. They were both resting from the now standard testing that occurred after a merger. His Hackware side was the youngest one used yet, and the result was more confusion on how to use his body's new capabilities in exchange for less confusion over who he was.

"You what? You just got yourself made into some kind of snake monster and you agree that we should give up?" she squawked at the reply.

"Needed something to justify getting better treatment when we're caught. Not like we're giving the others up either, one big last stand while the others get away," he hissed smugly. "Better chance that they offer me some kind of deal if I'm like this."

"Or we both get put into new pokeballs and given to better trainers," the bird monster suggested with a touch of annoyance.

Adrian considered that uneasily. "Okay, maybe I didn't think this through entirely."

"That is quite alright," Anderson said, shocking both of them by his sudden appearance. "You both should be fine in that case."

"Ask him if he understands pokemon," Murkrow chirped while composing herself.

"Ah, I'm afraid that I currently cannot understand you," the Developer noted. "That will have to wait a bit."

"He does that every time we try to get a straight answer on that one," the bird complained to her trainer.

"He has a translator in his earpiece," Adrian sighed shaking his head, then pointing to the left side of it. After looking carefully at the human Murkrow could just barely make out the device.

"Alice has already told me how the the improvements to your senses result in being able to hear it," Anderson admitted with a bit of a laugh. "The other two trainers who are on mission have also agreed to cover our next escape, and I must reluctantly admit that it would be better for at least one of those staying behind to be a hybrid. That way there is someone who can explain to them what exactly the Hackware constructs we leave behind are."

"You want someone to explain this stuff," the effective leader of Upload's grunts asked slowly while pointing towards the increasingly crystal looking landscape. "How far are you planning to go that doing that isn't going to mess up future plans?" he asked, only getting a wide smile in reply.

\---

"They've left now," Gazimon said from the monitor showing the Dark Network world. "I'm going to be making it look like I'm scrambling as soon as they drop their masking programs."

"Did you get everything we need?" Janice asked seriously while the others refocused from the various projects they had started while waiting for thee situation to change.

"A full scan of their part of the Network and the information on where the digital world is, yes. Now the hard part is going to be trying to analyze it all for a way in," the digimon replied happily.

"Initial analysis is bad," A-0 cut with a lot less enthusiasm. "The place has the best transport lock down I've ever seen, and the Dark Network side of things is a mess that will probably take us days to work out. Given they were unopposed this time we probably can't stop them from making one last attack even if we find a way through quickly."

"Do we have any kind of plan yet for how to deal with Datamon? He's an Ultimate, and that is a bit outside our typical capacity," TyranoGazimon noted from a second monitor showing Box 201.

"His body is a bit weaker than should be typical according to the data we recovered from the pieces of him we had in our own fragment," Delta 2 said from behind her. "His components are unlikely to be in much better condition than those given even the worst cases on what stuff Upload stole. His main body is vulnerable to the same stuff as a typical Steel type, and the places where he's been patched together should also be weaker compared to the rest of him."

"'Weaker than the rest of him' will still need our strongest attacks to take out at best," Crusher clarified with a huff. "The goo snake could probably do that if his stuff wasn't weak to Steel types, and our best people to melt stuff are either me or Tyranomon with the Investigator gone."

"We will have to work on that part of things while they are looking for a way to get us in," Shawn said confidently.


	46. 2-1C Ancient Infrastructure

\--- Ancient Infrastructure ---

"It's still going a bit slowly," Gazimon confessed to his trainer while the mostly human worked on his Grass type moves with the various digital creatures present in the Dark Network containment site. "We have plenty of information, sure, more than enough to break the defenses eventually. The problem is getting enough firepower through the hole to take out Datamon."

Serperior looked over from where he was leading the training cautiously, the starter pokemon still rather unhappy with his trainer's experimentation with moves. "I take from how you're saying that you already have a bad plan all lined up?" the snake pokemon asked teasingly.

"You won't like it," the digimon warned sighing. "My admin access is high enough that it doesn't actually stop me from personally going to the place." The rest of his team froze in their typical serpentine fashion. "From there I'd need to take down the block from that side, or A-0 will need to finish figuring out a way to use my being there as a hole to get someone else there with me."

"I think that is exactly why finding a better plan is a priority," Shawn said slowly. He turned away from the group of stone reptiles working to escape from his tangle of vines to look at the dark machinery maintaining their own part of the Network. "What are some of the better options right now?"

"Well," the rabbit monster considered tapping a few keys. "I might be able to take advantage of Upload's attacks. We'd be following their assault team back to base, so we would be going straight from one fight into a worse one, but that is at least plausible."

"Still not sounding too great there," a nearby Hardware-Light noted. "I for one think we should at least be trying for a plan that uses this small army we're working on."

"We didn't really want the army," Serperior noted with a sigh. "Honestly, having the army is another problem that we don't know what to do anything about right now."

"They didn't seem that tough when they took on Heavy," the circuitry dinosaur argued. "We can definitely help out."

"Most of them are as strong as Hardware-Heavy now," Gazimon warned the other digital life form. Then he shook his head and turned back to the fragment. "Let me just look into one more thing, then we can check in with the rest and see if they have any progress."

\---

"I have an unorthodox target for our next mission," Datamon said grandly to the assembled group of mostly Hackware hybrids. He had brought them into his now mostly complete lab complex. "I have found from analysis of the Porygon-Z-mon data that teleportation systems can be used in several ways to improve digital life forms. With this information I believe that we can use some existing examples of such systems to further improve our forces."

"My own investigations agree with that," Anderson agreed nodding. "What is the target you are looking at?"

Datamon activated the monitors behind him, revealing images of a large stone structure surrounded by prefabricated buildings similar to what they had started with. "This ruin was once the key part of an ancient network of teleportation devices that spread across this entire region." The central screen changed to show a large stone disc covered in carvings and specially cut gemstones. "It was the location where the actual components of the network were carved."

"Components that don't react well to storage methods," Alice noted sourly. "They aren't going to have those inside of a system we can hit. Which means by 'unorthodox' you mean we'd be going after the physical site itself."

"The researchers are currently attempting to recreate the devices, with some degree of apparent success. The information you recovered from the archival site included recent data on their storage of both the original completed units that were not shipped from the site, incomplete examples that are being analyzed, and also new attempts in various stages of completion. It should be a simple and rapid task to identify the first of these storage locations, and recover the original devices before a major threat can arrive at the physical location," Datamon argued.

"Go over the data you have on the location in detail then," Bob responded tightly, then continued silently over Hackware communications, "Absol, how does this one look?" The hybrids kept half their attention on the overly detailed explanation while the disaster pokemon considered the option.

"Anderson would be the better person to ask," Absol confessed over the line after a moment. "This leads to the right set of outcomes, but he's the one who still has projects to finish before we can make a break for it."

"Are those really that important?" HackBiyomon asked cautiously. "If we are in such a rush I'm not sure we'd have time for that."

"He means that boss man wants to finish his own elaborate merger plans first," the lead grunt contributed. "I think the plan is for him to see if he can get a form strong enough to actually look like an equal to Datamon."

Said digimon continued for some time, with Bob cutting in at times to clarify tactical information and Alice asking about what computer systems they had detected at the target.

"Alright we will need a bit more preparation than normal here," the lead grunt cut in hissing a bit. "The last time we ended up evacuating non-storable devices to a digital world was a mess. We probably should find somewhere to test taking stuff out of the physical world before doing this, but we don't want to give DSS any hint of what we're after for this one."

\---

"I'm sorry, but providing technical support for non-DSS digital worlds is currently a paid service. While we have some ongoing exceptions to this at the moment, those sites are directly related to and covered by the ongoing investigation into the activities of Team Upload," Janice dully told the caller while working on her actual job.

"Ah, well our site is one of those," the woman on the other end of the line lied badly.

"I have checked the listing we have of prior targets, your organization has not been hit so far," the Team Lead countered still focused on the data from Gazimon's long scan of the Dark Network. She had been spending quite a few of her nights chasing any critical information contained within those results. "So I'm sorry to say that at best I can transfer your call to the sales desk."

"It was a recent attack," was the argument that came back hastily.

"I don't think doing it to ourselves with their stuff counts," a male voice grumbled over the line immediately afterward, making Janice pause.

"I'm afraid that we currently have the most up to date information on the movements of Upload itself," she harshly replied. "I also should warn you that, as was said at the start of the call, this is being recorded, so perhaps you should not implicate yourselves in other activities while speaking with me." Janice then turned to glare at the two on the phone only to find herself looking at a confused secretary and her horrified Noctowl. "Even if you are a pokemon, as this line commonly employs translation equipment," she said keeping her voice sure and gaze stable. The other woman looked over at the owl with a bit of shock and then cut the line abruptly.

"Metagross, were you giving me an active translation?" Janice then asked her pokemon with a sigh.

"Negative, only the text version on the video call itself," the metallic creature said uncertainly. "We had kept the information on screen at it contained valuable data, but do not know how you already understood it."

"You've been pulling all nighters again, haven't you?" A-0 accused the human troubleshooter. "Great, just what we need right now. Strangle's going to be pissed."

"I'm right here you know," the female Serperior noted looking over the troubleshooters. "What's the problem?"

Janice spent a moment checking a small bottle of good sized pills before she sighed loudly at how it was more full than it should have been. "My mother left me with a condition that flares up if not treated," she said clearly embellishing. "The good news is that I only need to take these every other day or so and I'm fine." She rubbed her face in a strange movement, as if trying to trace a muzzle that wasn't there. "The thing is when I get too caught up in projects like this one I tend to forget about them."

"I was created the last time you were that 'caught up in projects'," A-0 noted a touch harshly. "Is this really as serious as finishing the first stages of the Box project?"

"Honestly? Yes, it is that serious," Janice countered equally harsh, but making it seem familiar at the same time. "I've been looking at some of the backup plans Gazi found in here for if things go bad for Datamon, and I don't want to think about some of the things that monster is thinking of doing if things aren't going his way."

"Can't you just take them now?" Jack asked quite confused. "I mean, what's the problem?"

"It isn't entirely safe to restart if the change is already happening. It doesn't become safe until a full week from when it wears off completely, and I've probably still got until tomorrow for that to finish," the Team Lead grumbled. "A week of being fuzzy and dealing with everyone's auras. My mom always stays human too, why did I still end up a 'cario?" she continued under her breath.

Everyone but the Porygon-2 blinked at the statement, then nervously looked at each other. "As in 'Lucario'?" Jack asked after a silent decision that he was up for this one.

"I have still not received a clear explanation from my parents why my mom is a Lucario turned human, or where we originally got the medicine," Janice continued complaining. "Or even why mom calls dad a Typhlosion when he doesn't have this kind of problem. Most I've managed is that when they met they formed a 'Rescue Team' whatever that means, and things progressed from there. For a while they said they would tell me when I was older, but so far nothing."

"So, the 'condition' is that you are actually a pokemon, but take some kind of medicine to turn into a human?" Strangle asked clearly trying to keep her temper. "Meaning that we are already out of humans in this group."

Both her trainer and Janice looked at the snake pokemon with different degrees of annoyance at this statement. "No, because despite the fact that I'm going to be stuck as a pokemon for a week, I am human," Janice said strongly. "I was able to get them to hold off on the dev team picture for days so that I could turn back before we took it." She pointed to a photograph of a younger version of herself holding a wide eyed A-0 standing with a group of other developers sitting on the small table holding up her console. "That's how A-0 even had a chance to be in it, and it knows as well as anyone that just because you can look like something doesn't mean you are that thing."

"Does that mean I can still call myself human despite the mask thing?" Jack asked shifting a bit nervously, his hand checking the pocket with said item for an instant and then rapidly moving away from it.

"As far as I'm concerned you can," she agreed strongly.

"So, check in call," Shawn suddenly cut in from the monitor array. "And I came in at Strangle saying something about medicine, conditions, and 'actually a pokemon'. What is the problem and how much is my fault?"

A short explanation followed, with the snake eyed trainer looking increasingly amused as it progressed. "So it isn't a big deal, just something she hasn't done since I was made," A-0 finished explaining.

"So it lasts a week then?" Shawn questioned with a smile. "Like how long she took off after that conference that she was only half prepared for." He then looked at her a bit more seriously. "Or when she did the same after Charlie 11 died." The Porygon-2 looked with some surprise at the Team Lead.

"Yes, I have forgotten it a couple more times since then," Janice admitted with a grumble. "This is just the first time that I can't make time to be out." She sighed heavily and closed her eyes for a moment. "Which is going to be a pain because the hardware for the Boxes is bright as a lighthouse to my aura sensors, and I didn't spend enough time with them as a kid for mom to teach me how to use them properly."

"I'm actually kind of relieved about this," Serperior noted nodding. "With all the stuff happening to the rest of us I've been worried about what would finally end up doing something to you, and now we know it is something you've already got a handle on."

\---

Alice started testing the new limits she had in the physical world as soon as they emerged at the target. These turned out to be rather significant, with her attempt to make barriers around their arrival location taking a lot more energy and requiring direct manipulation to keep them hovering in the air. She could see the others reacting to the difference with similar levels of annoyance, and spotted one of the researchers catching sight of their arrival with a look of confusion.

"Uh, okay. We disturbed you guys didn't we?" the young human asked, clearly mistaking them for pokemon.

"Uh, do we count as pokemon now?" the lead grunt asked nervously while they considered how to respond.

"Josh, what's going on?" a female voice called out, followed by another researcher showing up.

"Big red crystal pokemon just teleported in, probably from the testing," the first one answered sounding a bit too collected, making Bob sigh.

"While technically true," the Upload Tech admitted. "We're actually thieves here to steal your data and the teleporters." This blunt statement caused both of the researchers to simply stare at the Goliath hybrid.

"That's actually a lot better than I was expecting," Josh replied sounding a bit relieved. "We're pretty sure that the original crystals they used were the remains of ancient Psychic type pokemon, so I've been worried that trying to recreate it would attract any still living members of that species to attack us."

"I thought we were going to your human world," HackBiyomon said with confused annoyance. "Where things would be a bit more normal. Instead we're here for a couple of seconds and our army of monsters is less terrifying to them than what they were expecting to show up."

The still unnamed female researcher responded to her colleague's reply with a sigh and tossed forward a pokeball, revealing a large and rather rough looking Sandslash. "Oh, enemies?" he asked in a laughing rumble, just before sand began to kick up around them. "This should be fun." The Sandstorm quickly intensified into a stinging maelstrom that mostly obscured the sandy colored pokemon from view.

"Red-Sands, keep them busy while I call for help," the Ground type's trainer said grabbing Josh and pulling him away towards the prefabricated building.

"That is an ominous name," Bob complained ignoring the storm due to his Steel typing.

"Worry not, I know how to leave my foes alive now," the spiky pokemon laughed. Then at the sound of a Vir trio shattering grumbled, "Or at least I can for foes that are strong enough to matter. How are those so weak?"

Flat red flames washed over the area where Red-Sands voice had come from, the lead grunt's body twisting to move through the area immediately afterwards. "Found another problem, we don't really know how to do that," the Wyrm hybrid grunted as his physical attack missed the pokemon, his own typing not providing any protection from the Sandstorm.

"Stronger than I had thought," the Sandslash complained from much farther away. "But that is no matter, I can hear reinforcements."

"Alice, where are we from the things we're after?" HackBiyomon said a touch desperately. "We don't have time for this!"

A flash of light from the Shrine hybrid was the immediate reply, causing the sand to fall to the ground and the light of the sun to noticeably intensify. The Sandslash was nowhere to be seen, the only hint of his prior presence was a number of fresh holes in the ground around them. "Over that way is the storage yards. Remember, we want functional original examples and modern recreations only. Leave some behind," the tech said pointing towards the edge of the ruins where they could just see three roped off areas full of stone blocks. "Bob, come with me to their base to keep them distracted and try and get the data on how they're doing things."

\---

Gazimon was still complaining about Upload being one step ahead of them as they appeared at a utility pole close to the research camp. "I can't believe it. Direct attack somewhere that a node wouldn't have helped them," the digimon grumbled even as they all started running towards a dissipating cloud of sand. "This takes out half the ways I could have used this to get us in."

"Porygon-Z data, the breakout, and now a teleportation project?" A-0 asked floating at the back of the group. "They're planning to run, we don't have time for a better option."

"Will this be enough for them to make that work?" Grant asked as they spotted the Hackware standing guard outside of the prefabricated structure.

"Of course you're already here," the pink and red bird digimon complained from the air over a patch of ground covered with small holes and nervous Crabs. A flash of brown claws came out of the ground and sent one of the ground bound Hackware skidding to the side. "We were already having enough trouble."

"Looks like you're doing alright to me," A-0 noted looking over at a flash from another area of the site. "Guys, I can't exactly setup a transport block here, we need to take them out."

The avian digimon frowned at this statement and then began to glow. Her evolved form quickly made a pass at them with her claws while Gazimon used his Viral Tetrahedron to evolve as well. As Devidramon he was easily able to make the polygonal bird monster back up. At this point however two of the Crabs also evolved into Goliaths, moving the fight towards the Hackware side notably. "Shawn, head for where they're taking things," Quagsire called out. "We've got Steel breakers and Rock types."

A rumbling crash interrupted the fight, heralding the appearance of a massive Raichu towering above the storage area. "What the hell is that?" they heard the female Upload tech shout from just outside the prefabricated building. Followed soon after by the crystal-armored human-Hackware hybrid raising barriers to intercept a miss aimed bolt of lightning the size of a car that the pokemon nearly hit the main part of the ruins with. "Hey! We're trying to limit damages here! Don't make us have to stop you from breaking things."

"Dammit William, I told you not to use the giant monster tech around here!" another female voice shouted in agreement. "I don't care how much it reminds you of stadium matches back home, it risks the entire site!"

"This is just the digital world with humans living in it, isn't it?" the massive black bird digimon rumbled annoyed.

"Yeah, pretty much. If anything this world is weirder," Devidramon agreed fondly, prompting a moment of shared consideration of just what was happening before the battle resumed.

\---

Alice flipped forward to hang in the air and just stare at the ground as they returned, utterly exhausted by the complex teleportation/digital transport mix she had needed to do to get their field team away from the physical location before DSS could trap them.

"I don't care that I'm not Sora, I'm still apologizing to Biyomon for making her fight like that," HackBiyomon quietly said remaining standing by shear force of will due to Datamon's presence. "If I ever see her again," she added a moment later a touch sadly.

"You didn't end up stepped on by accident," the lead grunt complained rubbing his tail carefully to avoid sore spots. "At the end there we were protecting the place from them more than the other way around. Any idea what that was?"

"Someone messing with something he'd only ever seen on TV," Alice replied agreeably. "Didn't think I'd end up shielding the ruins from attack."

"Wonderful work," Datamon gladly declared looking over the set of original stones they had managed to transport. "This is more than I was expecting. I see you also recovered some of the newer attempts."

"And a copy of their own research data," Alice said aloud, noting how the digimon did not seem entirely happy about them recovering more than he had expected. "I'm fairly sure from those I can work out how to make new versions out of Hackware material."

"Of course. I personally will need the original versions for the more advanced digital life form manipulations," the machine digimon replied with an insincere smile. "The metaphysical nature of their age improves such operations."

The two techs looked slightly confused at this statement. "Uh, wow," Bob commented over the Hackware form of communication. "He actually doesn't think that's a real reason does he?"

"Yeah, he's lying about that and doesn't even seem to be aware it's true," Alice agreed the same way. "Honestly that's the reason why I don't want those ones for my own project."

\---

The Troubleshooter teams returned first, with Jack staying behind to handle the legal aspects of the attack, and proceeded to find an annoyed Lucario in the process of attempting to refit her clothes now that she was slightly shorter and built somewhat differently. "Grant and Shawn are fine, but you can't keep me human?" Janice barked, clearly in the middle of an argument regarding her change.

"I have not in fact found some new magic solution that meets all of your criteria. Just like the last two times you asked me about it the last two times this happened," Delta 2 huffed from the communication channel displayed on the monitor. "I can't even fix Shawn being almost a pokemon at this point, and I have no idea what I could even try with Grant. You want to be more human than I can manage, and you already have that 'medicine' that does a better job that I likely ever could, I simply cannot reproduce the way it locks you energy down tight."

A beeping sound came from behind the Chansey shaped Porygon-2. "Incoming communication, boss," Tyra said from off screen. "We don't really have enough space for more of these screens."

"Who did you call?" the currently canine team lead asked pointedly.

"The one person we have who is actually working on this project," Delta 2 smugly replied moving the viewpoint to show another monitor and her new assistant.

"Hello? Is this thing working?" Alpha 45 suddenly asked, blinking into view on the other screen. After a moment Metagross duplicated the image onto another of the array's monitors. "Oh wow, this is so strange." The normal Porygon shaped Administrator took a moment to look around what she could see of Box 201. "Wow. You're actually one of my siblings aren't you?"

Delta 2 seemed a bit taken aback by the result as well. "Yes, it is good to finally see another face to face, big sister," she replied with wonder.

"Big sister? Huh," Alpha 45 replied looking surprised. "This actually explains a bit of what A-0 feels." She then shook her head and refocused. "Right, back to the point. I have questions about this data packet you've sent me with just a bit too little background data." The digital pokemon's gaze turned harsh. "First, who is this Lucaro-Typhlosion hybrid I've never heard of before? Second, why does she only know Force Palm, when even a newborn Riolu would know more than that? Third where did you get this human transformation catalyst and what exactly does it do? Finally, why the hell have you been sitting on this stuff while I've been chasing something like it with only a minimal amount of luck?"

"In order: Janice, she is trying to be just a normal human, it is the stuff that has kept her human most of the time so far, and because she wanted to keep this a secret," Delta 2 said letting the interrogation slide off her easily. "Wait, hybrid? What do you mean hybrid?"

"Well, technically the flame vents on the back of her head occasionally appear on any Lucario with a Fire type father, but they are usually at the same location as their spikes forming small red rings around those structures. Lucario with those have a much easier time learning Fire type moves, but are otherwise normal. I just put it that way because according to this data it is just a clear fact that her father was a Typhlosion," Alpha 45 said, then blinked and looked past her sister at the Troubleshooter Lab displayed on the monitor opposite her own. "Janice is a Lucario?"

"I have flame vents?" Janice asked twisting to try and look.

"That is what those are?" Delta 2 asked dryly while the lead located reflective surfaces to inspect the small red patches of fur on the back of her head. "Great, that's more of a mess for her medical file."

"As wonderful as it is to hear that Janice is taking care of her current issues," Shawn cut in a touch coldly. "I'm afraid that we have a more serious problem."

"They got away with a full set of teleportation gear, more than enough to travel as far as another region without using the data network," A-0 noted sadly.

"I'm thinking it might be worse than that," Gazimon noted sourly. "I need to check some things with what Datamon has been doing right now."

Janice turned to look at the new arrivals, seeming embarrassed at missing their presence for a moment before squinting and looking back and forth between Shawn and Serperior. "I barely know how to tell auras apart and I can still tell that you two look the same," she mumbled as she buried her muzzle in her paws, pushing back her aura sensors somewhat in the process.


	47. 2-1D Architect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is part 1 of the 3 part Arc 2 finale.

\--- Architect ---

"We've been forgetting about half of the equation here," Gazimon said darkly after spending some time looking over the connection to the dark network. "Focusing on what Upload is after and not thinking about what Datamon wants." The digimon turned to A-0 and TyranoGazimon, who were both standing next to him in front of the monitor array.

"Careful analysis of the most advanced Hackware code shows he's tried to integrate the Dark Network digimon control code into them," the patchwork digimon said looking down at her medical scanner. "So far it looks like Upload has prevented that from working, but he's definitely trying to make them into minions instead of allies." She then brought up an image of a Tyranomon with a large cable running from the base of its neck. "That means that one of our new worst case scenarios is that we need to save the Upload team from being made into his puppets."

"That's a wonderful image," Janice complained re-wrapping her aura sensors in a fairly thick metal foil that was supposedly able to block the sense. "Given you are all starting with that one I'm guessing that the other problem is a bigger one?"

"He's started actively analyzing the fabric of reality itself in an attempt to get back to the digimon world," A-0 replied bluntly. "Combined with his goal to take over Hackware it now seems likely that they have no reason to perform any new attacks." The other five monitors now displayed a number of readouts from their Dark Network Fragment. "They don't need to hit any more sites in the region before making their escape, and we don't have very long before Datamon makes his move. If their Absol is able to sense that kind of thing, then they are already looking for a way out."

"If they do get out we have another problem right off the bat," Jack complained looking unhappy with the news. "Rob has basically told me that as soon as we catch Upload they are getting offered a chance to work off their crimes by 'helping' with the ongoing digital world issue they set off." The investigator's assistant rubbed his beaked face, then looked around the room seeming almost nervous about the lack of humans. Shawn's slightly unhappy reaction to how the others clearly didn't think he counted was ignored. "If they get away to another region then they have a good chance of getting snatched up by any group paying attention to this issue."

The still technically human trainer sent a look at Strangle. "Vibration said something about working on using arrows to pin down enemies and we were about to work on that when this started up," she responded in a brief hiss to explain why her own trainer wasn't human.

"Please tell me you aren't down to the 'send Gazi in first' option," Serperior said coldly looking at his teammate.

"We have two options when I get there," Gazimon replied bluntly. "The plan is to go with both of them." He calmly met the angry looks of his trainer and the serpent. "The faster way to get me some help needs a close metaphysical connection." The digimon's eyes briefly looked over to A-0 for confirmation that he'd said it correctly.

"Specifically, there are only three of us with a close enough connection to get in using the fastest method we have right now," the Porygon-2 said taking over the explination. "Myself from the time when the two of us were switched, Shawn from his status as Gazimon's trainer, and Serperior because the snake is basically the same as Shawn." The two of them did not look impressed with this information. "From there I can more easily override the transport lock while you three keep me safe, letting everyone else in."

"Option 2 is a set of custom viruses I can set off in the Dark Network," Gazimon added before anyone could respond to the first part. "They would break down the transport blocks after a bit of time, and eventually rewrite the Network's admin accounts to include the rest of you while excluding Datamon. If I have access to his side of things I can cut off his ability to stop the thing fairly quickly, so even if he takes me out you will still be able to get in."

"As horrible as that option is, I'm more concerned with Jack's issue," Janice huffed turning to glare at the bird pokemon. "How likely is it that the rest of Upload realizes they just need to get away from Datamon to get out of this?"

The Decidueye fluffed up a bit nervously at the attention. "Very, I wouldn't be surprised if they went on that last attack specifically to get ready to do it," Jack replied looking over at the data readouts. "From what I've been hearing it sounds like their biggest issue is that the barrier goes both ways. They need to break out as much as we need to get inside."

\---

"Right, gather round everyone," Alice said looking at the remains of Team Upload and the pile of stone blocks they had just recovered. "We need to be ready yesterday. So we've rushed to get this together." She held up a glittering red crystal.

"What we have here is a complete data archive for every bit of information we've grabbed so far," Bob continued while inspecting the growing crystal-like towers at the site. "In particular it contains all currently developed Hackware constructs, and the information we have produced on how to develop more of them using the rest of the data."

"The plan is for every hybrid and Shrine to be given a copy of this information just in case we are separated," Absol continued entirely focused on Datamon's lab and pacing nervously. "Everyone is going to be heading out with our full set of tools to restart Hackware production, and also to continue improving our abilities."

The lead grunt slithered forward to look at the crystal critically. "Everyone, or everyone who is going?" he asked while his bird pokemon landed on his head.

"The only exceptions would be Shrines made using the upgrade kits if we needed to break those out, and if I get the time I'm going to try and patch this into those too," Alice replied picking up another identical crystal and handing it to the Wyrm-hybrid. "It might end up being a risk if they capture any again, but we aren't exactly expecting to go on any more raids."

"Are we going to get time to at least practice using this stuff?" a Shrine-hybrid grunt asked following Absol's gaze.

"Right now," Bob replied pointing to the pile of recreation teleporters. "We need our exit finished ASAP."

\---

Serperior held Gazimon's Data Cube to inspect the evolutionary item carefully. "So, do you think it will be enough?" he asked his trainer carefully despite the digimon not being present in their shared apartment. Their third teammate was busy with last minute analysis of the Dark Network, while most of the others were getting ready for active combat.

"He'll probably want to take both of them with him just in case," Shawn warned while the pokemon continued to consider the item. "But we will need more firepower to take Datamon down."

"It feels strange," the snake pokemon said passing the white cube from one hand to the other a couple of times. "Kinda tingles, and it's definitely after more energy than I've got alone."

"Which means to go past Champion he'd need to use someone else's too," the red eyed trainer agreed blinking slowly to emphasize their connection.

"He'd still be taking both of them with him," Serperior noted in complete agreement with his trainer. "He might need to use this one to activate his programs, or he might need the other to stay alive, and he might just need both or we aren't saving anyone when we get there."

"He'll make it," Shawn said strongly, but clearly uncertain about how truthful he was being.

\---

Datamon looked over the final part of his victory with a wide smile. Anderson was the last of the humans planning to be merged with Hackware, and his specific idea had proven to be a justifiable use of one of the recovered teleportation devices. With the overly intelligent human under his control, and only two outlier humans to use other methods on, he would soon secure his forces.

"Isn't it wonderful to finally achieve your true aims after countless setbacks?" Anderson asked strangely matching the digimon's own thoughts. He was standing on the recovered stone, the artifact set into the center of a modified pattern for the merger process. "To finally have everything in place to get exactly what you have always been after?" Standing around him in a series of concentric triangular formations were the strange set of Hackware that he had apparently kept separate from the active forces. The first examples of each stage of evolution, with the Champions at the outermost edge of the formation, the Rookies in line with their respective Champion closer to the developer, and a trio of the In Training form floating in between with their points directed outward.

"I must admit that is a good feeling," Datamon said checking over the program the two of them had prepared for this purpose. They were alone this time, with the rest of Upload working on Alice's project with the reproduction teleportation pads.

"I have been working on digital life form development my entire life," the human said looking a small red case that fit easily in his palm. "Like many other researchers looking to go past the typical limits, Team Rocket provided me with far greater resources than anyone else would." He lifted the device to his eye, inspecting it carefully. "I have dealt with my work being refocused by leader after leader seeking profit and power, and with the downfall of our many locations as law enforcement groups find us again and again, all to achieve this moment."

The description of events felt familiar, but like always no memories came from the sensation. "I'm afraid that I cannot join in with my own tale. I have no memories of that time," the digimon said with calm regret.

"Hmm, would working on the smaller holes in HackBiyomon's memories assist with that issue?" Anderson replied still looking over the case.

He considered the idea for an instant, but his assistant's lost files could likely be located inside the remade Dark Network. His own mind could not be helped that way. "That is not really an option," he said trying to find the right words to get the point across. "It would not produce very useful data towards that end, and she currently has no issues with her capabilities from the losses."

Anderson's smile seemed to shift slightly at the statement. "Ah well, perhaps something to consider another day," the developer said with an unreadable tone. "Is the program ready for execution?"

"Yes, it is simply waiting for your signal," Datamon replied unsure of how the human had wanted him to reply.

Anderson lowered the case slightly, then pressed on one of its edges. The small construct unfolded out into a simple Dos unit, but Datamon was suddenly hit with a sensation of weight coming from the tiny digimon. With a hint of shock he realized this must be the very first Hackware ever made. The incongruity between the form of the baby digimon fragment and the strange power it seemed to represent in this area was unfamiliar to the Ultimate.

The tiny arrangement of two dimensional shapes slowly lifted in the air above the human while spinning. Once it reached a point around a foot over his head and directly in the center of the larger formation the program initiated itself, almost ripping the prompt away from Datamon's control. Immediately afterward the entire pattern began lighting up with power flowing inward towards the large stone, and as it hit the ancient crystal encrusted artifact a red glow encompassed the entire area and all of the creatures within it.

The glow remained far longer than it had in the other cases, retreating slowly inwards until it was simply a pillar of light extending to the edges of the teleportation pad. Instead of disappearing to reveal the new form of the developer, a shape emerged out of the light. The first part to emerge was an angular head, with the front meeting at a point and extending backward at an acute angle while growing in thickness, and then ending with another 'v' shape forming horn or ear like protrusions out the back of the head. Four pure black eyes were present on the face, with a larger pair in the typical location for binocular vision and a smaller pair further up the angled portions of the head just below the horn like structures.

Next came a thin polygonal humanoid shape, the stance reminiscent of an imp, with two arms and two legs. The new Hackware's hands possessed three fingers and a thumb, all harsh claws like those on the human-Wyrm hybrids. His feet were digitgrade with two harsh looking claws facing forward and a third behind. A thin tail extended behind the creature ending in a short spade that resembled the clawed form of a Vir. Two claw-wings extended from the creature's shoulders, each far thinner and longer than the equivalent structures on Wyrm hybrids. Much of his body was covered in the same symbols seen on Stone and Shrine class Hackware, all faintly glowing a red color that was barely able to be differentiated from the flat color of the rest of the new Hackware's form.

The overall result was an imp-like demonic form that Datamon could clearly tell was another Ultimate digimon. "Ah," the latest merger said stretching out as the light died down to reveal that the ancient stone had been cracked in the process. "Exactly what we were all after. I am whole."

"Are you alright, Mr. Anderson?" Datamon asked unnerved by the statement but excited at the prospect of having another powerhouse under his control.

"Hmm, I believe I would prefer to be called 'The Architect'," the latest fusion noted watching the machine monster thoughtfully. "Although I do not think I will be going with your convention of adding my file extension."

Datamon nodded and carefully moved over to a nearby control panel. "Wonderful," he replied. "I am looking forward to us working together, Architect." His finger descended onto one of the buttons, initializing his own ultimate plan.

"Oh," the demonic digimon said in a calm tone. "You seem to have activated a back door program connecting all the Hackware to the Dark Network, and causing them to fall under your control." The lack of reaction seemed to indicate that the program was working. "That would be a-"

"-Disaster," Absolmon suddenly cut in from behind them. Datamon turned around rapidly, which revealed the white furred hybrid canine standing in the middle of the entirety of Upload. The Wyrm was flanked by Alice and Bob, with HackBiyomon standing behind him. "Honestly, it is a big enough one that I can sense it without needing to get anything from it," the hybrid continued inspecting his claws. "You really never did pay attention to what my species was capable of did you?" Datamon found himself wondering how his assistant could have missed informing him of a power that would forewarn them about his plan.

"Not to mention that the Dark Network is a horrible thing to try and control us with," Alice added unhappily. "After all, you know that DSS has access to the system. What if they had gotten ahold of this backdoor?"

"It really is the worst time for it, given their attack is imminent," Bob continued as the machine digimon realized he needed another option to get out of this alive. "I mean, you complain about resources going to any project other that your plan of going home, but waste so much on trying something already compromised."

"I must admit, I am rather disappointed in you, Datamon," the Architect said in the same calm tone he had always used. A tone that suddenly meant the exact opposite of success to the digimon. "The others had all given up on you as soon as they realized the nature of your control over your so called 'assistant', but I had hoped that you could overcome your problems." The latest Hackware form sighed heavily. "Really, your biggest problem seems to be that you don't ever realize that others can be intelligent as well."

Datamon's systems suddenly went into overdrive, time crawling nearly to a halt as the one thing he had hoped for so long to experience occurred.

+++

It had been in the pyramid, back before Etemon had operated openly. Datamon had been standing across from the plush monkey digimon in the middle of his personal lab. He had been in a rush to do something before, but what wasn't part of this memory.

"Things wouldn't have ended up this way if you were just a team player, Datamon," Etemon drawled so long ago as he walked into the room. "We made an awesome team ya know, your smarts behind the scenes and my strength playing the face."

"I think you will find that I am more than capable of doing things myself," he had replied smirking and activating something he could not recall, although he could tell it was linked to what he was rushing to complete.

"Ya' know, yer problem is that you don't ever think that anyone else can think of solutions ta problems," the monkey said taking out a key part of the systems around them. "You go 'round so caught up thinking you're the best, and don' even bother looking at what everyone else is actually doing."

"How? How did you know how to bypass it?" he had asked, getting just a laugh in response.

"Didn't need to know how it worked, just how to break it before you could use it," Etemon said with a laugh tossing the device behind him. "The worthless blob at the door was just a distraction so ya wouldn't take yer time. Really though, I never did get what taking over their minds did better than just being stronger than em."

That was the moment back then we he realized that his plan had truly failed. That he was trapped with an army all around him, and one big enemy he could not take alone. Despite this, he still remembered preparing to implement his backup plans.

+++

The fight had been next, and he still had fragments of that time, but the memory of the moments leading up to it had been lost. Datamon came back to the current events, a strange mirror of that instant so long ago, and saw his situation. Taking advantage of the increased speed of his thoughts he considered his next actions. There was a backup, an older program he'd refined as part of the development of this back door, that would allow him to control a single Viral digimon for a period of time. If he could take command of the Architect while his assistant attacked those around her he could maintain control over this world and some of the survivors.

"HackBiyo-" he started to order preparing the program.

"I hope they kill you quickly and thoroughly," the bird digimon said sweetly to cut him off. "You deserve to die slower, losing your memories again bit by bit, but you've also survived worse before, and I don't want you coming back to threaten anyone again." The statement cut off all thought in the machine digimon. The sheer impossibility of his servant somehow not just disobeying him, but calling for his destruction, stopped him entirely for a long moment. His control over her should have been threaded through her entire code.

Thoughtfully, Datamon turned back towards the Architect. The human he had allowed free reign with his creation. "This was a trap," the digimon accused, suddenly feeling unbelievably tired from the revelation that he had no allies left here, and even if he did take over the Ultimate successfully, he likely would not survive the resulting battle simply due to having too many foes. His will feeling fragile in the wake of the bad memory, taunting him by twisting his greatest desire into such a terrible reality.

"Hmm, no. The others planned a trap, but I made it into your final test," the Architect said walking up and past him to join the others. "Your one final chance to show you could think beyond yourself." The air inside of the lab suddenly changed to the dry moldy taste of a tomb, and he could hear the exits to the facility seal along with many devices shutting down. "You have failed. Thus, the only reason to leave you alive now is to buy ourselves time. You shall guard the doorway until we leave this place, and then should you still survive you will be all alone, as you seem to prefer things."

The group then walked away, and Datamon simply let them. He only watched powerlessly as the many Hybrids glared at him following their leader. Soon after he heard the outer doors open one final time, and then close with a loud clicking of the system locking down entirely.

"How many things have I simply done again, because I had forgotten the results of the original attempt?" he said to himself. After a moment of contemplation he moved to check what he still had access to, in order to perhaps determine why they were so sure he had made an error with dismissing the Gazimon's pathetic attempts at intrusion.

Naturally, to cap off the day said pathetic digimon simply appeared inside of the chamber as the result of a far too complex administrator override of the transport lock.

\---

"Tyra," Gazimon said motioning to the digimon as they made their way to the lab for their own attack. "I have a question."

"I dunno, old man. I don't think there's much I'd know right now that you don't," the patchwork digimon said nervously looking at Shawn and Serperior further ahead of them, who were focused on some secret discussion they were keeping from everyone else.

"Do digimon really reincarnate back in our digital world?" the older monster asked with a complete sincerity that terrified the medic trainee.

"Uh, yes? Of course we do," Tyra replied cautiously in the face of that specific question. "Why wouldn't we?"

The older digimon got a far off look in his eyes, and then sighed. "It's just hard to believe after all the Gazimon I've seen arrive and die working for the damn monkey," he replied tiredly. "Gazi after Gazi, from those before me all the way to you. Not one of them remembering who I am or what we did before. Every last one a whole new person different from all that came before." The hybrid digimon found herself unable to reply to that statement. "Which means that either none of them came back, or none of them remembered anything when they did. Seems like it is just them dying either way."

The speech was familiar, as if from a forgotten dream. "Just because they don't remember anything doesn't mean they aren't the same people," TyranoGazimon found herself saying, getting a steady look from the other digimon. "They will still act the same, have the same personality."

"Memories can change the personality," Gazimon replied sadly. "She never worked up the willpower to actually tell that to my face. Had to find those words in a journal she saved to the Network."

"If you know I'm-" she started confused and worried.

"You aren't. Not even as much as Grant is the Armaldo that lived long ago," he interrupted her. "You do remind me of her, but she wasn't as driven to succeed, or as discreet when she did try. I can see some of myself in you honestly." He tapped her in the forehead. "You know how to survive, and if there is anything I can do it is survive."

He turned and began to walk after his team. "Make sure everyone else remembers that," he called back. "I won't die easily."

"Wait, what are you saying?" she responded a touch too late and entirely confused.

"He's got one advantage over everyone else that should get him through," Crusher replied with a chuckle from behind her. The Monochromon was looking seriously at the other revived former Gazimon. "He can still kick my ass without evolving. Datamon's not going to realize how much stronger he is than he should be for quite a bit of time."


	48. 2-1E Hopelessness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is part 2 of the 3 part Arc 2 finale.

\--- Hopelessness ---

Pagumon kept a careful eye on the hallway to the lab Etemon had ordered him to guard. The plain metal walls and exposed conduits were far different from the stone of the pyramid above them that made up most of the location the two Ultimates were using as a joint base of operations. The In Training digimon was excited to be working for the pair, and if that rumor that both of them had been Pagumon themselves once was true he hoped that they were willing to help get him some power too.

Then he heard the sound of metal clanking against metal, and moved to make sure he was just far enough from the specific door he was guarding to make it look like he had nothing to do with it. The augmented form of Datamon appeared around the corner, the fully armored four legged and two armed digimon scanning the area even more critically than Pagumon had been just before. All the blob-like digimon needed to do was keep the cyborg distracted until Etemon arrived.

"Ah, one of the little ones," Datamon said with a strangely fake kindness. The small digimon could kind of see how someone could mistake it for awkwardness, but knowing who this guy worked with made it clear this was just an oddly poor act. "What are you doing down here?"

Pagumon had the perfect plan for what to do next. "Can you explain how the power transfer system works?" he asked pointing with an ear at one of the panels on the wall that he'd seen Gazimon working on before. Some of the real smart ones could go on for hours about the details of that stuff, and Datamon was the smartest digimon around. The In Training digimon did his best to put on an interested face and prepared for the lecture.

Instead the other digimon simply dropped his bad nice guy act. "A word of advice: when it comes to stalling someone with questions, it is best to use things you are actually interested in," Datamon harshly said. "That reduces the chance that your target will see through even a pathetically obvious example of the tactic, and also makes it easier to think of followup questions should they have a short answer for the one you start with."

Pagumon gaped at the response, but also paid close attention to it. "So, it would have been better if I'd asked you about how you learned everything you did?" he asked thinking on the idea, and trying to keep the Ultimate from considering that he had still stopped moving towards the main lab.

"Perhaps," the older digimon lied. "How about we make a deal? If you distract Etemon for a little bit while I get some work done alone, I'll let you have special access to the data archives."

Pagumon took as much time as he dared considering this offer. Datamon clearly could only be trusted as much as Etemon, but with how big those archives had to be, even a crippled access would likely have at least some of the information he wanted. "Hmm, I can try," he attempted. "Etemon is really smart too."

Datamon simply scoffed at the statement, which seemed as odd as the rest of the interaction. "I'm sure you can pull it off," the other digimon once again lied, before walking past into the main lab.

Frowning and unsure Pagumon waited, spending all of the relatively short time it took Etemon to show up thinking if he wanted to take the offer. The soft padding of the monkey monster's feet was quieter, but the young digimon was still paying close enough attention to hear the Ultimate before he could see him.

"Master Etemon, I have a quest-" A casual kick cut off the tiny digimon's attempt to gauge the viability of the tactic, slaming him harshly into the far wall of the hallway. Pagumon nearly passed out from the pain of the hit, and was sure that he was about to die.

"Let me give y'all a piece of advice, don't try and pull the thing ya were ordered to do on the guy who told ya ta do it," Etemon said not even slowing down. "Now how's about you stick right there till I'm done with old Data, and then I'll finish explaining that to ya?"

Pagumon simply sat outside of the lab and tried not to cry too much while he waited for which ever of those two who was coming out to do so. For a short time he was considering simply seeing who would be out first, but soon he heard crashing and explosions. Then he realized that only one of them was going to be coming back out at all.

Some time after the sound of fighting finally stopped, and Pagumon did his best to collect himself and stand ready for what came next. Etemon was the one to emerge, adjusting his sunglasses and looking around the hall. "Really now? Are ya thick headed or just trying to make yourself look better?" the Ultimate asked as he spotted the injured blob.

"I don't want to find out what you'd do to me if you had to track me down, sir," Pagumon said, his tone wavering under the larger digimon's glare.

"Heh, well I guess that's a good enough reason," the monkey leaned down to glare at him more clearly. "And it looks like ya actually did manage to distract the metal idiot long enough, so congratulations. Ya get to live."

+++

Gazimon looked around the large chamber he had arrived inside, and as covertly as possible set up the admin virus using a pane hidden behind his body. The facility he'd ended up in brought back memories of the original lab that the Dark Network's core had been setup in, although with a darker colored metal making up most of the base, with pieces of the common prefabricated lab parts he'd seen in the listing of stolen goods visible under what was clearly Datamon's personal work.

The Ultimate digimon himself was standing in the middle of the room with an expression Gazimon had never seen on the robotic monster's face before. Not the self assured arrogance from before the fight, or the fake dull look from the crippled monster putting itself back together afterward. Instead, he looked like everything he'd ever wanted had just been lit on fire right in front of him.

"Ah, you're actually here," Gazimon said conspiratorially. "I was hoping to get a chance to talk to you before the others decided to hit this place. I found their interception program and was able to use my old account to get in."

The other digimon simply stared dully at him, not the reaction he was hoping for, but the lack of reaction was still an acceptable outcome. "What do you want," Datamon said tiredly.

"I just have some questions I never got to ask you with Etemon around," the rabbit monster continued nodding, as if everything was normal. Then, after a moment of consideration, asked the question he'd wondered so long. "Like, which one of you two betrayed the other first?"

"What?" the metallic monster asked sounding genuinely confused, which threw Gazimon.

"You know, before the big fight? I remember you two running that racket for so long while building the Network up into this." He carefully took the opportunity to tap one of the exposed cables of the Dark Network, implanting a more direct variant on his control virus in the process. "But I never really knew if Etemon betrayed you, and your backup plan failed, or if his backup plan worked on your betrayal."

"I am afraid that I do not remember the answer to that," Datamon replied looking more aware. "However, I was under the impression that all of the digimon from that time period were, dealt with, by now." A moment after saying this, and just before Gazimon could continue the conversation, he shifted to glaring at the Rookie digimon. "You're stalling for time."

"Duh, but like you said, 'when it comes to stalling someone with questions, it is best to use things you are actually interested in'," Gazimon quipped sliding into a ready stance. However, rather than comprehension of who exactly he was, the other digimon simply looked confused by his quote. "You really don't remember do you?"

The next moment he was scrambling to the side, as apparently that was what it took to shake the other digimon out of the depressed funk he had been in. Tiny guided missiles peppered the area he had just been in, while his own blast of Dragon Breath clearly surprised the machine digimon enough to distract him. Gazimon took that moment to evolve into Devidramon.

"So, you've managed to use some abilities while in the process of evolving," Datamon misunderstood the situation looking strangely smug at the result. "Given your apparent age, it seems clear that you are one of countless valuable tools the monkey left to rot."

The dragon digimon then detected a program being activated inside of him. A quick and crude scan, the best he could manage in this form, revealed it to be some program initiated by the machine digimon that was using parts of his Viral coding to attempt to limit his actions. Realizing the intent he activated the form shift ability Alpha 45 had made for him, shifting his shape into the vulpine form of Youkomon and leaving the control program without a valid target.

"That is not going to help you," Datamon said despite sounding upset by the sudden change.

"Hey, all I need to do is last long enough," Youkomon countered opening dragonfire panes and forming symbols around them, both to occupy the stronger digimon and also to give yet another avenue to start up a counter to his control over the Dark Network.

The first wave of the Ultimate's missiles was stopped by flame dragons and panes of energy, with the few dragons that went past splattering against his metal form with no visible effect. The second wave was dodged a bit desperately by the fox digimon as it arrived far more quickly than Youkomon had anticipated. As a result there was no followup set of attacks or defenses to block the third wave from partially connecting to the Data attribute digimon.

Gazimon emerged from the resulting cloud of smoke in a barely controlled tumble, hitting the ground hard but still able to roll back into a ready stance. He flinched at the sound of his two polyhedrons tumbling to the ground at opposite ends of the room, and looked over to the still unharmed and casual looking Datamon.

"Really now? Did you actually believe that you could stand up to me for any time at that level?" the Ultimate said grandly. "That coming here alone would result in anything other than your death at my hands?"

"First one in only needs to get the door open," Gazimon countered considering his options. Poison was unlikely to work, paralysis not much better. The floor was actually fairly heavily infested with electrical cables, and while a Ground type would not have needed to worry about that kind of thing, simply knowing a move of the type wasn't enough to protect him well enough there while digging.

"For which you need to last long enough to get it open. Your Champion forms are lost, and even with them one is mine to control and the other cannot even take a glancing hit," Datamon continued clearly enjoying explaining just how bad things were. "They will not arrive in time to save you. You have simply trapped yourself in a hopeless scenario."

If he'd said anything else Gazimon would have seriously engaged the digimon in an attempt to draw out this conversation, but this statement could only produce one reaction in the digimon. "Heh, heh, ha," the rabbit monster began to laugh helplessly. "Hopeless? You think this is fucking hopeless? I'm a Gazimon! One of Etemon's grunts no less," he struggled to say over the amusement. "Every day of our lives is a test to see if we'd make it to the next day. A struggle to make sure we aren't too useless to keep around, while also not getting competent enough to be a risk to monkey man's ego." Collecting himself for the most part he stood and looked Datamon directly in the eye. "The only thing we ever had to keep us alive was hope that we'd make it to tomorrow, and if you think that now, when I have friends and allies backing me up and ready to help, is the time where things are finally hopeless to me, then you don't know what hope is."

[CONDITIONS MET]

Golden light encompassed Gazimon's form, then his body once again began to reshape. Like the previous form he had taken on it had a quadrupedal stance, although this time his paws shifted into single solid hooves. Like his first change a pair of wings then emerged from his shoulders, this time with a clean feathered appearance compared the other tattered batlike wings. A large mane grew out from his head, and his tail shifted from its typical cat-like shape to long strands of hair that matched his equine shape. His ears shifted to batwing shapes, and his muzzle extended forward. As the changes to his shape completed the glow faded, revealing a dark orange colored winged horse digimon, covered in gleaming golden armor set with angelic symbols. Notably the mark of Hope, a shooting star, took up the center of the chest plate to the armor. Taking flight on yellowish grey wings the new Pegasusmon laughed at the result.

"I guess this proves I know what it is at least," he said sending a rain of glowing stars towards the Ultimate with a beat of his new wings.

"Don't think that will let you beat me!" Datamon shouted a touch desperately. "You're still a stage below me, even with a Vaccine form."

"You really are dense aren't ya?" Pegasusmon asked harshly. "I already told you, I don't need to beat you, just to last long enough for reinforcements to show up."

Datamon seemed to grow a bit panicked at this statement, his eyes darting to the exit with a strange expression. Then they hardened and the fight resumed. This time Gazimon managed to open a few panes, now made of shining white light, and use them to form solid barriers that were able to withstand the missile blasts. While his data manipulation abilities in general were not up to his Youkomon form's level, the barriers seemed far easier to create. Similarly the small number of missiles that made it through in the next couple of minutes of him simply defending crashed into his armored form with far less impact than the hit to that other form had taken.

However, his own counterattacks were similarly ineffective, with blasts of golden energy and falling stars causing some damage to the digimon, but it was clear they could both last too long to judge the outcome. "Hey, Gazi, mind if we borrow this?" Serperior suddenly shouted from one of the corners of the room that his polyhedrons had fallen into.

The two combatants turned to spot three figures at the edge of the room. A Pink and Blue polygonal pokemon with panes open and a serious look on its face, a red eyed human apparently trying to glare Datamon to death holding a Pokedex, and a large green serpent holding one of the evolution catalysts with a sinister look in his cold blue eyes. "Go ahead," Pegasusmon said with matching dark glee, while Datamon froze at the sudden appearance of backup. "Although it is Pegasusmon right now."

The trainer then sagged a bit as a visible green beam of energy shot from the pokedex to the small item, then grew outward to envelop the snake pokemon holding it, and continued to grow from there. The serpent enlarged massively, coils digging into the floor of the chamber and threading around the room until it had taken up much of the available space both above and below ground level. As the glow faded it revealed that the pokemon had changed from a vine like snake monster to a massive gnarled tree root, studded with equally massive leaves and pitted with patches of a thick black tar-like liquid. That same liquid filled the holes in the ground that the temporarily digimon creature was looping out of.

"This is interesting," the former pokemon rumbled in a deep voice. "Name's a bit clunky right now though, Basirablemon. The admirable basilisk monster," he continued regally, while Datamon considered the evolution. "Now, let's see what I can do here." Pegasusmon took this chance to send the information on his virus attempts to A-0, who was carefully looking around the room while covering Shawn. The trainer had obviously needed to put a lot of energy into this evolution.

"It seems that you have forgotten something as well," the machine digimon suddenly called out, looking quite smug. Suddenly, the newly evolved snake monster froze, and appeared to be trying to fight in order to move. "My Viral control program is still available, and it appears I have another Ultimate on my side now! Basirablemon, I order your to-"

"Fire Solar Beam at me directly. Full strength, center of body, do not stop for anything!" Datamon's voice cut itself off, causing two of the three digimon present to look over towards the arrival point. Where a flat colored doppelganger of the machine digimon was standing next to Shawn with a smug expression, just before the transformation shattered to reveal a now exhausted A-0.

"No," the real datamon said looking into the cold smiles on the faces of his enemies. In particular the gaze of Basirablemon, who had not turned to check who had really said those words. "I did not order that."

"Sorry, but I actually want to follow that one," the snake digimon rumbled spreading his leaves out widely. "Pegasusmon, mind giving me some star shine?"

"Sounds like a plan," the equine digimon said with a laugh, and then sent a series of glowing yellow stars toward all of the leaves with a powerful flap.

The entire length of the plant monster lit up as they were absorbed by the leaves, and then a truly massive green beam of light emerged from his chest. The blast fully encompassed the other Ultimate digimon, and continued onward to smash through the far wall a short distance above the ground. There was a harsh grinding sound as the energy crashed into Datamon, that grew louder for a second before the digimon crumbled apart.

"Just to be sure, we did want that one dead right?" Shawn asked as the beam dissipated, not sounding too concerned with the result of the attack.

"Busy dealing with deadman's switches," A-0 said harshly having rushed over to a large console. "Gazi's programs cut off most of the ones we spotted before we got here, but I can already see some active right now that we need handled."

"I got full admin rights now," Pegasusmon said while searching for the Data Cube. "I'm transferring control of the transport lockdown to Janice."

"Receiving," the currently Lucario shaped Team Lead cut in from the structure's speakers. "Looks like you have made our node the primary one now?" she asked as her image appeared on one of the surviving monitors. "Why is Serperior giant?"

"Temporary powerup," Basirablemon rumbled, sounding a bit tired. "Send the others quick, I don't know how long we can hold this."


	49. 2-1F Hackworld

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is part 3 of the 3 part Arc 2 finale.

\--- Hackworld ---

"That is not part of the plan!" HackBiyomon shouted at the beam of green light blasting a massive hole in Datamon's lab.

"Alice, how long before the device is ready?" the Architect asked with his new tail lashing nervously.

"Absol, I need you working with me on this," the Shrine hybrid said harshly while motioning for the other Shrines present to join her in working on the crystal construct. "We're down to plan C now."

"Datamon can't do that," the avian digimon said in a panic. "There is no way that was him!"

"Oh, I'm sure that some of that dust in the beam was him," Bob said grimly. "Looks like you got your wish, and DSS has apparently caught up on the Ultimate front too." The Goliath hybrid turned to the massed Hackware standing ready for the plan. "I'm going to distribute the upgrade kits now so we have some more firepower."

"Yeah, we're down to plan C," Absol agreed sourly. "And getting captured is now somehow worse than before. Something has changed and we end up in a bunch of big messes if the cops get a hold of us."

"Is it really that bad?" HackBiyomon asked looking sadly at the three grunts planning to stay behind while the others escaped.

"It somehow turns into a massive disaster for the entire region if most of us get caught?" the Wyrm hybrid said confused. "I don't even know what I'm looking at here, it almost looks like we end up starting a war or something."

\---

Jack landed in the ruined lab along with his team right as Quagsire's quickly moved to cover one of the doors, all of the new arrivals looking with some worry at Basirablemon's temporary Ultimate digimon form. "That doesn't look the safest," the currently avian trainer said pointing specifically at the patches of tar along the massive serpent's length.

"I think those are from Acid Armor," the Starter replied looking down at one coil critically. "Combining that with the Viral attribute seems to have made me a bit Muk-like."

"We should hurry," Shawn said leaning against a wall. "The break has helped a bit, but to get him like that me and Serp are pushing our limits. I'd say we have half an hour before we're done for the next few days."

"I'm not doing much better," Pegasusmon agreed resting while looking over A-0's work with Datamon's backup plans. "He took me down once during the fight, and Youkomon isn't going to be much help against Upload either. Although this is a defense based form, I don't have the firepower I've been using against them." He turned to look at his teammates. "Mostly because they are using it right now."

"I'm tied up," A-0 said tersely. "This is a major set of problems that need handling right now. Not to mention I've already spent most of my own energy taking on Datamon's form to save those three."

"We will handle any Goliaths," Kabutops said strongly as his team started poking at the inactive control panels. "Our team is best suited to dealing with Steel types."

"My team can probably handle the other Hackware," Jack admitted reluctantly. "I'm going to be providing some fire support." He plucked an arrow from one of his wings and looked at it nervously. "That seems to be something I'm actually fairly good at doing."

"Roberts says he's ten minutes from being able to get there," Janice said over the building's speaker system. "And the line I gave our small army is that they are in charge of hitting wherever Upload runs to as soon as possible. That should keep us from having them fight to the death for no reason."

"Not using cannon fodder somehow is a nice change, but still a bit annoying," Crusher noted pushing her trainer onto her back. "Right, bird boss, you are staying with me. I should be a stable enough firing platform."

"Right, let's do this," Basirablemon rumbled and then looped himself around the hole he had blasted in the wall to tear it down more thoroughly so he could fit. "Shit," he simply said as he looked outside of the structure.

The others took this as reason to simply break down the doors to see what was happening outside. The digital world as a whole was obviously once a highly mountainous area with little else in it, and now was instead a crystal landscape. Towers of red polygons dotted the altered region, and a number of oddly shaped smaller structures made out of the same material gave the landscape an alien feel. The relatively small prefabricated base at the closest edge of the area was even partially taken over by the substance, with one building in particular being half remade into the Hackware colored material.

"Guys, is this what a full on corruption disaster from looks like?" Pegasusmon asked faintly.

"It is," Shawn said, but with a somewhat confused tone. "But usually with a bit less running around in a panic." Across the converted section of the digital world the various Hackware units and hybrids were moving rapidly around a larger construct the group could just make out as containing the stone artifacts that the group had stolen.

"Looks like we're just in time," Quagsire complained, just before a massive number of the Rookie Hackware suddenly evolved into Champion forms. "And of course this is what happens next. Are we sure that we don't need our own army?"

"Our army is made out of mostly Rookies," Tyranomon noted with a loud sigh. "Which means it is just us against all of this."

"We only need to take the hybrids alive," Strangle said seriously. "There's too many of the rest to try and worry about saving any of them."

Her brother responded to this statement by generating a massive wave of black sludge that crashed against the front ranks of their enemies, and then was halted by the formation of a crystal barrier across its path. "I'm quite sorry, but we still have a bit of work to finish," a calm voice said as a new form of Hackware floated to the front of the group, a demonic looking collection of polygons that was entirely focused on their Ultimate.

"Developer Anderson," Jack noted recognizing the voice and drawing an arrow. "You can just surrender."

"I am using my new form's name now, so I would prefer to be called the Architect," the Hackware leader said grandly, then looked over the group present. "I was honestly expecting to have fewer humans left than your side did." The device that his group was working on then began to spark heavily, with a steady blot of energy forming along the center of it reaching up to the tips of the structure. "I will deal with the serpent. Bob, organize the evacuation. Alice, get the gate open. Everyone else hold them off, but be ready to move out."

Quagsire and Kabutops both surged forward using jets of water at their enemy's orders, with the rest of their team close behind them focusing on a section of still tar covered ground containing a larger quantity of Goliath units than the rest. Jack quickly began firing purple arrows with surprising accuracy, although his rate of fire was slowed noticably by his efforts to stay steady on his Monochromon's back. The rest of that team quickly spread out and engaged the Hackware with ghostly energies, shifting sands, and tangling vines.

Pegasusmon flapped his way to help his teammate against the fresh Ultimate that they were now faced with. This proved to be a good idea as the imp-like Hackware lifted a hand to forge a number of large crystal projectiles and fire them at the two tired digimon. Golden barriers mirrored the Hackware's earlier action in stopping the powerful attack. Basirablemon replied with a storm of massive leaves that peppered both their enemy and the rest of the Upload forces.

Those forces were splitting up to a degree, with the two remaining humans of their group moving forward along with a serpent-like hybrid. The rest of the hybrids all clustered closer to the strange construct, some rapidly adding or removing collections of polygons, while others organized the closest Hackware into formations clearly prepared to use the location as an exit to the digital world. "Right, opening the gateway. Everyone stand back!" Alice shouted moments before the crackling lightning changed into a shimmering red tear in reality. "Absol, let me know when it is ready!"

"We have a problem," Janice's voice said to Shawn's Pokedex and barely audible to the others from the now ruined lab's speakers. "They've punched out of containment somewhere, and I'm not getting a clear track of their destination." The statement was mostly ignored by both sides, as the battle now occupied their attention, although everyone was cautious in their attacks so far. "I'm contacting Charlie 13 to see what he can make of this," she said sounding like she was talking more to herself than anything.

Upload, clearly focused more on buying time for the gateway to stabilize, focused on keeping the pokemon facing them away from the device while preventing their own losses. The three grunts with pokemon staying towards the front and directing the Hackware to try and keep attacks from hitting already wounded units. The Shrines were mostly staying towards the back of the formation, generating barriers to block ranged attacks and also appearing to repair wounds on Goliaths moved backward. Those sturdier Hackware were attempting to keep themselves near the front to use their bulky bodies as living shields for the others. The Wyrms on the other hand were not as single minded in their own actions. The serpent-like digital life forms were grabbing the Goliaths to pull them back when they were injured, sending their own flames out past the defenses as a strong ranged attack against the many pokemon with a type disadvantage to Fire, and also joining the Shrines in the attempt to throw off attacks by creating visual distortions with their ghostly powers.

Jack's team was sticking with ranged attacks, but their close brushes with death kept them wary. The Decidueye trainer was rapidly firing at any Shrines or Wyrms that he could spot, his Ghost typed arrows punching through the Psychic barriers more easily than other attempts, but he was clearly struggling to find a balance between rate of fire and accuracy. Crusher seemed uneasy with the scale of the enemy forces she was facing, and it was easy to notice that she had taken to being a firing platform out of worry about actually fighting a force of this size. Strangle did not have the range or the typing to be effective against the attacks of the enemy Fire types or the defenses of the Steel types. Their two remaining teammates were clearly caught up in remembering the last fight like this they had faced, with Vibration flinching at every near miss he dodged and Smile constantly checking on his teammates.

On the front lines Tyranomon had ended up as the centerpoint of his own team, who were acting the most offensively of anyone in the battle. Grant was slashing his way through any Hackware that got close to him, while also sending bursts of Water, Rock, and Ground typed ranged attacks out towards more distant targets. Kabutops and Quagsire were sticking with more ranged attacks, although they were still close enough to provide physical assistance to the formerly human Armaldo. Dugtrio was focusing entirely on long range and wide area attacks, the three domes generating quakes a good distance into the Upload formation. The digimon member of the team was shuffling between front line attacks alongside Grant and ranged attacks with his two Water type teammates, clearly unsure as to which he found the better option.

The battle between Ultimates was not going well for either side. The Hackware Architect was left mostly on his own as the rest of Upload focused on their own tasks, which required him to take the full force of Shawn's team. This was making it clear that while the imp-like Ultimate had power, he was not experienced in using it, as his movements were unsure and resulted in many failed dodges and missed counterattacks. Basirablemon on the other hand was skilled enough to not only batter the other Ultimate, but was still sending his area covering attacks into the other Hackware to aid the rest of his side. However, the collosial serpent was clearly only barely able to hold onto his current form, with small patches of pixelated errors appearing at every lucky hit that did make it past his teammate's barriers.

"In retrospect, using Hackware that I had kept isolated from their moment of evolution was not productive to having a wealth of practical experience regarding their capabilities," the Architect said sounding a bit tired after he took another hit from a barrage of leaves. "Alice, we need-"

"It's clear!" Absol shouted and the rippling tear stabilized a bit as they stopped manipulating the device. "Everyone out of the universe!" Suddenly there was a shift in the fight, with the Hackware hybrids closest to the hole in reality quickly pushing those slightly farther away through, and then having the Champion stage Hackware around them move next.

"Absol, you had better already be through that portal!" the Hackware Ultimate shouted forging a wall of red crystal like barriers in front of their army, and clearly intending to just keep them up instead of continuing to fight. "In fact I should be the last of us still here right now!"

"I'm not leaving my trainer behind again," the oldest of the Hackware hybrids called back motioning for Alice and Bob to go through the gateway. "So unless-" The canine cut off with a grunt as a red barrier appeared and pushed him bodily into the portal.

"Jack, can you do the thing you used to beat the other Decidueye?" Vibration asked looking nervously at the massive barriers blocking them from the now retreating army of digital monsters. Smile quickly rounded on his teammate for the suggestion and began to go into how exhausted their trainer had been afterward.

"Yeah," their trainer replied in an odd tone, as if he was remembering something long forgotten. He pulled out a small cluster of arrows that quickly were consumed by purple energy, making the number even more difficult to identify, and then pulled back strongly. "Clear the range," he continued in a somewhat distracted tone that sent his two Ghost type teammates scrambling out of the line of fire. Then a barrage of purple arrows streaked out from the avian's bow-like wing, striking the barrier directly and in many places continuing on to hit the retreating forms on the other side. In particular the center of the arrow formation hit the Architect himself, breaking his already strained concentration with the solid blow and shattering the barrier entirely.

Tumbling in the air the Ultimate stage Hackware took a moment to right himself. "Boss man, time to get out of here," the snake-like hybrid called out, one of the last three other members of the group that had not gone through the gateway yet. Despite this statement neither the Wyrm hybrid nor the other two still human trainers made any move to reach their escape, instead sticking with the fairly small group of Hackware units near the front that were making no effort to leave.

The Architect finished recovering, and then teleported with a flash of light to just in front of the gateway. "It appears that we are out of time," he said flinching at a spark from a part of the overall structure that had been hit by Jack's attack. "For what it is worth, we have no plans to return. With any luck, this is the last you will ever see of Team Upload." He then floated backwards into the portal, disappearing with a surge of energy that cause the overall structure to begin to glow brighter and brighter. Just moments after he was gone the entire device exploded with a shuddering tremor, peppering the closest creatures with shards of shattered polygons.

Instantly the remaining Upload forces stopped attacking, with the hybrid and human members clearly raising their arms in surrender. The Hackware suddenly froze in place and moved back to clearly show they were no longer hostile.

"You know," Jack said in the abrupt silence that resulted as the DSS forces stumbled to stop fighting themselves. "I'm a bit torn." His tone commanded the complete attention of the criminals, clearly realizing that he was the law enforcement leader currently present. "On one wing I'm responsible for this whole mess, and them all getting away probably won't look good even with all of you still here." He lifted his head up, pointing his beak to the simulated sky. "But on the other one, I kinda wish you three had managed to get out too," he continued, clearly shocking the three of them. "Because we're in the middle of a mess that you've set off and I'm not sure you aren't going to be broken out by some other group right after I'm done with you and be right back at doing this stuff."

The three trainers slowly began to shift towards the Decidueye's team, their own pokemon moving up to stick close to them. "Uh, that is basically the exact opposite of the reason that we volunteered to stay beind in this whole mess," the hybrid said uncertainly. "We're here because we're done with the whole crime thing."

The Investigator's Assistant looked down at them dully. "Great, now I've got to figure out how to keep you all from getting kidnapped and or stolen," he said burying his face in his wings.

"Uh, is stolen the right word?" the human with the Golbat asked sounding confused.

"For the hybrid and the Hackware probably," Shawn said walking up as his team began to glow again. "Don't worry about that too much, Jack here knows all about being stolen." Serperior simply flopped onto the ground, melting slightly into a puddle, while Gazimon carefully looked at the golden seven sided polyhedron that had formed from his latest evolution. His old rival sighed heavily at the reminder.

\---

Not long afterward Investigator Roberts arrived to help a once more human Jack with detaining the remaining Upload trainers and Hackware. "I am not fond of the idea of protecting the remaining members of the group that caused my kind's overall issue," his Hardware-Light commented quietly from the edge of the lab where they were preparing to transport the group out of Upload's digital world.

"They kinda created your kind," Salamence noted spreading Analyzer drones around to look over the area and keep an eye on the Hackware around them. "So in a way you owe them for existing at all."

"A-0, any idea where they went?" Shawn asked tiredly from where his team was resting near the site of the explosion. The Porygon-2 had finished disabling Datamon's systems in the time it had taken for Roberts to arrive, and was now moving forward to check the remains of the portal structure that Upload had used to escape.

"Insane, that's where they went," the digital pokemon noted unhappily. "They didn't actually have a destination set at all. It looks like they simply waited for the target to be some place where they would survive the trip, and then made a run for it." It turned to look at the ruined lab and sighed. "I can definitely back up what Anderson said about them not planning on coming back, because they are more likely to get back to this universe by accident than on purpose."

"Wait, 'universe'?" Gazimon asked sitting up quickly and flinching at the motion. "As in they aren't just in some other region?"

"They have basically re-created the event that brought you to our world, only with a bit more safety," A-0 said groaning. "A tiny bit. They will be lucky if all of them end up in the same universe at the far end."


	50. 3-00 Parting Ways

Act 3, Back To 'Normal'  
\--- Parting Ways ---

Everyone had gathered inside of the Dark Network Fragment's digital world. Gazimon's new position as the overall admin of the sinister system was still something the Troubleshooters were trying to figure out, but as a large enough space for everyone to gather together it worked better than many of the other options. They had basically split the room into three sections, with the Troubleshooter teams closest to the control system for the Network to use its monitors to communicate with Delta 2 and the other Administrators that had directly participated in the events, the Investigator teams were standing mostly across from them in a relatively professional manner, and the many Stonescales and HardWare digital life forms were milling around in a wide circle around the other two groups.

Roberts was standing at the center of his group, with his team to one side and Jack to the other. Growlithe was laying on the floor, and clearly didn't think she had anything to contribute to the discussion. Salamence on the other hand was doing her best to stand at attention, occasionally looking over at LAS with a touch of embarrassment. Behind the two pokemon the HardWare-Light and Stonescale that the Investigator had taken on were examining their new digiballs, with the larger force of Stonescales having rejoined the group standing at the edges. Jack had purchased a small bag specifically for his mask, which currently contained the item that was arguably his main body. Strangle the Serperior was cautiously hanging off him, the two of them having patched up their Trainer/Starter relationship somewhat, but it still was not to the point where they were entirely comfortable with each other again. Vibration the Flygon and Smile the Gourgeist were sitting on top of their final teammate calmly. Crusher the Monochromon was the most conflicted looking of the group, with her eyes shifting between the three other digimon standing on the DSS side of the area.

"I would like to formally thank you for your assistance during this investigation," Roberts said with a formal tone to match. "Without the technical skill and capabilities of your teams we would not have been able to end the threat of Team Upload to the world." Despite the tone matching it was clear this part was all very forced. "Officially I must ask you if you could continue tracking their forces in the hopes of bringing them in for proper justice."

"Unofficially," Jack said quietly and clearly breaking out of the act. "We've been told to just let them get away. In two different ways actually, with the corrupt parts asking us to make sure they get away to somewhere they can be contacted, while the parts trying to actually deal with the big issues want them to just disappear into another world and never come back."

"Of the ten Porygon Upload we captured over the course of the investigation, six are still in custody," Roberts added deflating notably. "We have leads on three of those that were lost, one of which is from Janice's efforts to deal with support calls." He sighed heavily. "One of the leads is already outside of this region, which means we're going to need to leave soon if we want to catch up with all of them."

"I'm guessing that you're going to have to keep us out of the loop from now on," Janice said nodding, which partially unraveled the foil on her aura sensors. Her solid pose was quickly ruined by her rapid attempt to get the metal back into place, and the following quiet grumble on how fiddly the stuff was to use.

"You are still our best source of digital world information, so I have been able to get you listed as consultants," the Investigator replied sounding a bit nervous about the statement. "It isn't that big of an impact on my budget."

Shawn flinched at that. "You either impressed management, or have a bigger budget than I thought," he commented before turning to look directly at his old rival. "And now you don't have any excuses to not stay in touch."

"You are the only Grass type who can be human shaped that I know," Jack joked while tapping the bag containing his mask.

"I'm also keeping in touch with my sister," Crusher rumbled while looking at TyranoGazimon. "Even if I have to be a bit forceful about that."

"I'm technically not your sister," Tyra complained, then nervously glanced at Gazimon before turning her attention back to the other former Gazimon. "But I think I understand what you mean."

"You're going to call me 'dad', aren't you?" the rabbit monster asked the metal plated dinosaur with a touch of fond annoyance.

"Only when its funny," the Monochromon laughed, although this statement seemed to make the rest of her team look over the three digimon in a new light.

"I'll see what I can swing as fitting into whatever contract you've signed," Janice said having spent the conversation thinking about the response to her almost-question. "Although it sounds like you still have a mess to fix while we can go back to normal."

"Janice, you were complaining this morning about how you were tempted to give the HardWare-Lights access to the support phone line to deal with the issues other companies were bringing us from their new digital worlds," A-0 noted blandly. "Are you taking the other Stonescales again?" it asked the Investigator as the Team Lead looked away with a huff.

"At this point keeping track of them is more trouble for what we've actually ended up doing than they can help," Robert's HardWare-Light replied. "I'm staying with this group to make sure that one of my kind is involved in the legal investigation into the creation of new digital worlds. So I guess you can also count me in on those of us who wish to keep our relatives informed of our progress."

"I honestly hope we don't end up only calling you to get your help again," Roberts sighed at how the conversation had shifted. "It has been a confusing time overall, but we could not have done this without all of you."

\---

"Ok," Quagsire said bluntly after the Investigators had finished saying goodbye and had Salamence transport them back to where Roberts had been working prior to the attack. "What is the stuff we haven't been talking about because the law's been around?" This inquiry earned a bit of a laugh from most of the Troubleshooters.

"On our side there is the joint research project issue," Grant calmly replied to her question. "Deepstone Labs has decided that our team is uniquely suited to the research of digital life forms, and the effects that they can have on physical life forms. In particular they are interested in the LAS conversion process."

"How 'interested'?" the LAS asked darkly, turning to look directly at the Armaldo.

"I've managed to stop official volunteers from showing up so far," Janice said sounding annoyed. "But the four of you are already causing a bit of a stir in both the dev team and Alpha 45's TM research. Not to mention the dragon's transformation. Management is only holding off from agreeing at this point because I'm still seen as an expert on how risky corruption is, and the former recording devices have personalities that can easily be mistaken for unstable."

"Of course we start off with that kind of thing," the amphibian who effectively led the team from Deepstone noted. "I take it that means we're being left here to help out with the Troubleshooters along with that problem?"

"We are," Grant confirmed. "They are still restricting our access to Box inhabitants, but apparently when it comes to going out into other digital worlds that are now being covered by the Troubleshooting team we are outright encouraged to go all out on scanning things." The former human sounded unimpressed with this reality.

"That is definitely a mess we didn't need them worrying about," Shawn said agreeably. "So, how bad is this 'support for other digital worlds' thing we're apparently doing now?"

"Mostly work for me," the Lucario Team Lead said with a sigh. "It wasn't a joke that I'm considering expanding the phone support side of things. Metagross can handle things along with me, and A-0 is used to it already, but there are now dozens of digital worlds that people are considering actually using for something."

"The biggest change is the creation of digital transport programs and that transport hub digital world that the cable connection turned into," A-0 added unhappily. "It actually turns out that the ruins where we ended up having to deal with a giant Raichu were already comparing some Upload methods that were leaked to them with the devices they were making." It then sighed heavily. "There is going to be some serious fallout from their work."

"The overall problem should be fairly minor for some time, as we are just advising at this point," the jackal pokemon said sighing. "Although, we might be called in to handle any corruption outbreaks to start with, and management wants Quagsire's team looking over any interesting formations as part of the contracts, but the main thing is going to be handling a few more phone calls."

"Don't forget that I might be getting more traffic for digital corruption wounds," Delta 2 cut in from her monitor. "Which I'm not entirely happy about, but more because it means more pokemon are at risk from this stuff than having some more work to do." She shifted her gaze towards Shawn and Serperior. "Which brings me to my issue with the latest adventure."

"Let me guess, don't use the funny shaped things again?" Serperior said jokingly.

"The exact opposite actually," the Chansey shaped Porygon-2 noted smugly. "You two are sticking with just attempting with the Viral one, but we need more data on what exactly it is doing, and from what I can see it is safer than some of the stuff you've done to yourselves so far."

"Delta 2, we're still exhausted from doing that," Shawn seriously replied to that suggestion. "I want to look over a lot of scans on just what we did so far before even attempting that again." 

"Too bad we didn't get any," the medical Administrator countered harshly. "Nobody with a sensor system worth talking about was actually looking at the end result. Apparently having a pile of problems that need to get done right now makes trying to get information on other things for later difficult. So, in order to figure out what you two managed, we need to do it again. Let me know when you feel you're up for it and we'll find a place big enough to make the change."

"I have an entry on the subject of new problems my team has," Gazimon said sitting down with a sigh. "Taking out Datamon made me into the Dark Network's Administrator."

"Yeah, we know," Janice cautiously replied narrowing her eyes. "The system saw that the old main admin was gone and gave you all sorts of access because you were the next highest ranked one."

"No, I don't mean that it made me the main admin, I mean I'm the Administrator for the Dark Network," the rabbit monster said while pointing over at the monitors showing the Box Administrators. "The damn thing isn't going to be as bad as a Box, it's made to survive without one and I'm not that linked to it, but still." He trailed off clearly nervous about actually clarifying what he had meant.

"How bad is it?" A-0 asked suddenly shifting to look over the digimon in shock. "Are we going to need to keep you here?" The Porygon-2 then immediately opened a pair of panes and began to run what were clearly pre-made tests.

"I just said I can disconnect from it fine. The bigger issue is that it kinda takes over places," Gazimon replied looking unsure of how to react to the sudden protective interest. "If there is enough of these cables in a place I can kinda do things like this." He then opened a pane and after a moment the flat construct flashed out of existence. Then the featureless walls and ceiling of the digital world they were in shifted to look like a simplistic starry sky.

"Ah, okay. You're one of us now," Delta 2 said faintly at the change. "All the way."

"So, you can use the same connection as the Nodes to keep in touch with that world, right?" Charlie 13 asked sounding like he was hiding something. "And you don't need the connection for the world to keep going?"

"Worst case, I can use the nodes to expand the network to take over other digital worlds and control them too," Gazimon replied harshly. "It was basically made into something that did that after all."

"Made into from what?" A-0 asked sounding a bit less stressed. "I know you've said it was part of a larger system that was corrupted by Datamon."

"I've only got bits and pieces of what it actually did before," the digimon admitted, happy with the minor change in topic. "The main part was the overall communications system for the labs and bases of the powers of light. There were some secondary functions, but most of that stuff was added by Datamon."

"Some of it was sent to us from those other bases and labs," TyranoGazimon noted, her focus mainly on the change to the sky of their current location. "We were still trading for things Myotismon didn't need for his projects when everything went down."

"Is this something that would impact trying to use Dark Network Nodes to monitor digital worlds?" Janice asked sounding guilty.

"I wouldn't be taking over the place with just one of those," Gazimon cautiously replied emphasizing the word 'just'. "But it would be easy to use that as a basis to quickly take it over by just making the Network expand outward. We aren't planning on doing that are we? Because arguably I'm a bit more dangerous with doing that than Datamon was given I can go full Porygon Administrator if I get enough cables through a place."

"Development team has already begun attempts at re-creation and modification of the Node hardware," Metagross complained. "Management groups are considering the option after receiving the data on the function of the devices."

"Because of course they are," Tyra complained smacking her face with her reptilian hand. "That's a terrible idea. This is frankly a piece of corruption from our world, all we should be doing right now is making sure Gazimon is ok from being connected to it." She turned to the older digimon, only to find him looking thoughtfully at the HardWare-Lights. "Gazi?"

"Can we actually swing having those guys work on tech support issues?" he asked sounding almost excited. "Because I have old training guides and can give out new admin accounts." The many circuitry dinosaurs shuffled a bit nervously at the question.

"That's a relief," Janice said dully. "Because I've already requested permission to do that with them. Will the Nodes help then?"

"I can try and restore the function of the Network back to its original uses, plus some new stuff," he almost answered her turning towards the control console. "Yeah, this could work." He then paused to consider his actions. "Uh, maybe I should make up a report?"

Janice had a paw over her face at this point. "That would be great. Anyone else have any news that isn't going to make anyone happy?"

"Ah, yes. Things are getting back to normal," Shawn commented leaning up against his starter.

\---

"So what were we waiting to leave to talk about?" Crusher asked looking around the small digital world that Roberts had apparently started using a base while working on the stolen criminal Porygon.

"Probably me for one thing," the remaining Wyrm hybrid said slithering out from behind a stack of computer equipment, his Murkrow perched on his head. "I'm apparently stuck with your group until some sort of mess is solved?"

"No, I'm fairly sure they already know about that one," Jack commented sighing. "I basically said it to them when we caught you."

"You were there when I got caught?" the former human asked looking curiously at the trainer. "Unless, you were the bird pokemon?" he then asked sounding worried about the possibility.

"I have your new trainer cards." Roberts said passing three of the IDs to his assistant. "I've been told you only need to use the human one if you want to keep the other forms hidden."

Jack looked over the cards confused, pulling out the middle one to get a better look at it. "Do I really need one for the mask?" he asked disbelievingly. "I can't even move if I'm stuck just like that." The Upload grunt mouthed the sentence after it was said, clearly trying to make some sense of the statement.

"I'm fairly sure that when they heard 'possessed mask' they assumed 'like a Yamask'," the Investigator replied. "You shouldn't really need it, but it probably would be best to keep that one with the mask just in case you get lost."

"Or stolen again," Crusher joked, then took pity on the confused serpent monster. "Yeah, he was the bird. Apparently that big energy attack at the end was a bit of a problem?"

"Yes, the massive rain of ghostly arrows that knocked the wind out of the Architect was a bit of a problem," the Hackware complained.

"I guess it was for me too," Jack agreed sounding a bit unsure. "I apparently can only remember that part of the fight when I'm a Decidueye."

"The others got off easy didn't they?" the Murkrow asked, getting a translation from her trainer after the two humans sent her curious looks.

"The big thing we're not telling DSS is that some of the technical personnel from your group that we had captured when you escaped with Datamon have been 'released' into the care of some places with dubious intent," Investigator Roberts said sadly. "Our first stop is one where a Porygon might have ended up alongside them."

\---

Janice looked over the now mostly empty room after her two Troubleshooter teams had left for a well deserved rest after the mess that had been dealing with Team Upload. Now she was alone with her evolved pokemon and the patchwork digimon waiting for them to get a more sedate pad based transport to Box 201 ready.

"So you really don't want to know how to use your real form then?" TyranoGazimon asked a touch harshly, but the digimon was also itching at the edge of a patch of scales again.

"I have lived the vast majority of my life as a human, and intend to continue doing so for the rest of it," the Lead replied simply while locking her own currently red eyes onto the Rookie. The Lucario then stood and walked over to the rabbit-dinosaur, standing over the smaller digimon by a good amount. "Just because this was apparently my birth form does not make it more 'real' than my human form. If anything it makes the improved senses more annoying as they are genuinely mine instead of just a side effect of my mother's species." She then carefully removed the metal foil from the front sensors on either side of her head. "With these I can see the auras of all things around me. I even know enough about how to use them to be able to tell emotions when they are being felt strongly."

"Ah, so you?" Tyra squeaked shifting to show even more worry in her aura.

"The foil is actually not very good at keeping all of it out, and even without that you only pick at your edges when you are lost thinking about the changes," Janice said bluntly. "So, what is the real problem that you think you can lead into by trying to attack me?"

TyranoGazimon looked somewhat frightened by the response, then shifted to a more curious expression. "Datamon's gone, and the bad guys are basically beaten. Now all that's left is getting things back to normal, and what I want to do normally isn't exactly the kind of thing that is acceptable," she replied, growing more confident as she continued. "I mean, I have a plan for ways to alter the Stonescales into pokemon by making modifications to their code, that way they can be more effective at fighting while also being less likely to be destroyed by attacks."

Janice's face shifted to a look of confusion at this argument. "You have been considering how to turn them into effective combatants?" she asked, getting a nervous nod from the digimon. "All on your own, with no one saying you could do it?" Another equally nervous nod met this second question. "You think that is a bad thing for some reason?" Janice asked a moment later sounding utterly perplexed.

"The first thing I've done since we finished winning is plan how to make an entirely new army for us?" Tyra responded now confused herself by the reaction. "How to alter creatures to be more dangerous isn't a good thing, is it?"

"There is a plan going through management and local law enforcement right now regarding what to do with the HardWare and Stonescale units," Janice responded factually. "The overall goal is to begin preparations to give out units to select trainers as a trial to see if they can be integrated into society now that the threat has passed. If that goes well we might even give some out as starters to new trainers that DSS will sponsor in their League run. The two methods we are considering are either providing modified pokeballs that allow for them to be captured in their current state, or to develop a safe method of converting them into pokemon so existing pokeballs can be used." The Lucario tilted her head to the side. "I was planning on asking you to look into the latter option tomorrow, but it seems you are ahead of the game."

"You mean I've been worried all day about doing something that was going to be my job anyway?" Tyra asked in the tone of all long suffering minions who accidentally got work started early.

"Somehow, but I'm still confused, what about making them better fighters is a bad thing?" the Lead confirmed walking back to her console and giving a bit of a glare to Metagross, the Steel/Psychic typed pokemon caught up in quietly laughing at his partner's confusion. "As long as it isn't going to hurt them in the long run or make them go mad and attack people that kind of thing is done in a lot of labs out there. I'll admit the kind of stuff we can do is a bit more controlled than typical, but you already know that one of our Porygon is literally liquefying pokemon right now for that exact reason."

"I forgot about my boss's mad scientist sister," the patchwork digimon groaned burying her face in her hands.

"You were lost in memories of your old world," Metagross said entering the conversation. "We have been forced to reconcile such things many times since our latest merger, as the events of these conflicts reminded our component selves of times of risk and hardship."

"Yeah, I guess so," she admitted after a moment of consideration. "I was thinking about stuff Gazi said to me, and how Datamon had been right there against him, and how I had to keep my work secret so Etemon didn't..." she trailed off, but the meaning was clearly understood by the pokemon in the room.

"Delta 2 can be a bit harsh in her tone, but she will help you with figuring out if your projects are acceptable," Janice said turning to look at the digimon again. "Don't worry about asking so much, and make sure to check what other people have already done so you don't end up figuring out something on your own, only to learn that there was already a metal that people knew blocked aura and you wasted two weeks on something you can just buy from specialty stores." The other two turned to look at the jackal pokemon with some surprise. "I ran out of medicine the first month I was working here, and that's how I discovered that storage systems have so much condensed aura in them from their contents that an untrained Lucario can barely function around them. So I wasted a week learning to make something that blocked Aura, only to discover that the outer walls were lined with a thin metal sheet to keep it from disturbing wild pokemon, or worse attracting them."


	51. 3-01 Back to the Grind

\--- Back to the Grind ---

Tyranomon looked over the Dark Network Core, as the HardWare digimon had taken to calling this digital world, and considered the situation. The immediate reality was that the digital world was being calmly remade from a rapidly assembled hacking attempt into a support center for the dozens of other digital worlds made during the crisis. Grant, for the first time since his evolution, was acting in a leading role, having knowledge from working in a lab environment before along with the experience of setting up field facilities at dig sites. The other pokemon that made up the team were mostly doing heavy lifting, with Kabutops as the exception. The fossil pokemon had managed to wrangle some Stonescale Miners into construction work using their core programing and was managing them instead of working himself.

The digimon personally had nothing to do. They had already finished with the first set of the largest prefabricated parts that he was best suited to, and now were mostly working on moving the sinister cables to hidden spaces behind the simple structures. The few Stonescale Soldiers were similarly done with their part for the time being, but they were either lounging thoughtlessly or engaging in simple play fights. He did not need to consider doing anything like that himself, Quagsire had made sure to confirm that he wasn't going to need to take part in any more fights.

"I do not know what to do," he found himself saying unprompted. The quiet admission drawing his team's attention quickly.

"Right now we don't really have anything for you to do," Dugtrio said jovially.

"I think he means long term," Quagsire replied a touch dully. "What did you usually do with your free time before?"

This question was just as unnerving to the digimon as his own statement had been. "I have spent most of my life under the control of the Dark Network," he admitted after an awkward silence. "The entirety of the time that I have been a Tyranomon in fact." The realization that there was not actually a time when he had both been in his current form and at peace was a harsh one. "Before that I had been an Agumon, and back then Etemon's forces were simply too powerful for me to do anything but follow his commands. Although, thinking back on it we didn't get many more Agumon after I evolved."

"The more I hear about Etemon the less I like the idea he could still be alive," Grant said in what the rest of his team felt was too casual a tone. They had planned to do quite a bit more work with the reincarnated fossil on his tendency to slip back into an ancient mindset now that the threat was over, mostly to get him to a point where he was safe to use in typical pokemon battles. "If he is can we try and fix that?" the fossil pokemon continued slashing with a claw.

"Grant, we still don't know if we can get him home," the amphibian leader of the team bluntly replied. "What kinds of things have you been interested in doing then?"

"I never expected to have the chance," Tyranomon had to admit. "I've just been learning to fight better because I never really thought I wouldn't have to."

"We really need to find him a world where he doesn't have to," Kabutops noted somberly. "Because I'm not too sure what to suggest either."

\---

Basirablemon looked over the forest around them easily due to his massive size. "Why did we have to do this outside again?" the massive serpent asked in a loud rumble, while his tired looking trainer reassured the Officer Jenny they had warned of the attempt beforehand.

"Delta 2 says she wanted to verify this worked outside of digital worlds," TyranoGazimon said a touch frightened by the sight of the Ultimate digimon. "I'm not seeing any negative results yet," she continued attempting to focus on her medical scanning equipment instead of Basirablemon. "Although it is still a bit surprising how it turned you entirely into a digimon."

"This is a lot bigger than I thought it would be," the Officer commented looking a mixture of concerned and embarrassed. "I have to go make sure nobody panics, don't do this out here again." She then began to move quickly back to town, clearly only avoiding running to keep from looking like this was a cause to panic.

"What's it like up there?" Gazimon asked with a laugh, although the smaller digimon was also checking to make sure Shawn was alright at the same time.

"The height thing is taking a bit to get used to," Basirablemon said calmly, but he was looking over the forest around him with some concern. "Although I'm being extremely careful with how much I interact with the plants around me. I seem to be a bit corrupting in nature, and I'm not looking forward to how much of that I will need to clean up when we're done here."

"I think that is kind of just how things work with Virals," the rabbit monster commented while checking on the plants closest to the tar lined holes the massive wooden snake was emerging out of. The smaller trees and grass close to the edge were slightly discolored to an ugly purple, while the larger plants farther out almost seemed to be holding back the effect. "Uh, or maybe not. This is a lot faster than it should be happening. Tyra, we need a scan of these. I'm not much use for that outside of digital worlds."

The hybrid digimon quickly moved over to inspect the plants. "Yuck, looks like they've been made Poison type by the tar," she commented, sounding unsure about the details. "They are changing rather quickly, some are already converted."

The massive head of the snake pokemon leaned down to look himself. "Honestly that looks a lot slower than I had expected," Basirablemon commented thoughtfully. "A Muk can change a patch of forest into a toxic swamp in minutes, although admittedly the local Grass types would be able to get it back to normal just as quickly." The digital monster looked up towards his trainer. "Shawn, what do you think?"

"I think I need Tyra to be checking me right now," the mostly human trainer replied equally thoughtful. "Because now I'm not sure if I'm feeling tired, or feeling toxic." He then walked over seeming rather casual about the statement to look at the plants more closely. "Yeah, this is a lot slower than that Muk that you let escape." This earned him a glare from his starter.

"Wait, that was another thing you two have actually seen?" TyranoGazimon asked with some shock as she once more shifted her scanner's target. After getting results she began to rapidly look back and forth between Shawn and Basirablemon. "You're right, kinda. It looks like the two of you are kind of tied together according to this, and the Poison type is flowing back down. It does seem to be making Shawn a bit sick, but it is also turning him Poison type at the same time allowing him to resist that."

"Right, does that thing have a second sensor?" the massive root digimon asked. "Because I want to know what happens to my trainer when I turn back, and holding the toxins from tainting the ground is kind of exhausting." He then blinked at his own statement. "Actually, if this is what the Muk was having to do for their trainer, I was a lot harsher with them then I should have been."

"I can do it," Gazimon grumbled opening a pane and catching it in a claw. "The data isn't going to be quite as clear, but it should catch what happens to the poison."

Just a short time later the massive serpent began to glow and then shrank back down into the considerably smaller form of Serperior. The large pits in the ground similarly returned to solid ground, leaving behind only splatterings of tar on the surface and some purple tainted plants. The outermost of these plants returned to normal before any of the group could react, with only those closest to the remaining tar staying corrupted.

"Some people actually do this kind of thing on purpose," Serperior noted sliding closer to the nearest pools. "Like the place we ended up at that had a wild pokemon attack break the wall and let the Muk out." He then carefully extended a vine out to touch one of the altered plants. "Huh, this is actually weird." The pokemon slid forward with a great deal of interest present on his face, drawing his trainer close quickly. "This thing is somehow less Poison typed than the Muk's stuff, despite the big visual changes."

"Maybe it is because this stuff isn't digital?" Gazimon suggested looking over the data scrolling along his pane. "I know I wouldn't be as well off out here as Youkomon because of that."

"That seems fairly likely," Shawn agreed while Tyra tried to keep up with the team. "Either that or you were holding back better than you thought, Serp."

"Hmm, get a good scan of these and the tar before I clean then up," the snake pokemon said to the bewildered patchwork digimon. "I think we can get the data from that place if Delta 2 hasn't already, and I want to see just how this stuff compares."

\---

"Yes, I am in fact a talking Lucario right now," Janice said dully to the customer on the line. "It is a medical condition."

"Ah, alright," a manager of what was technically a rival company responded clearly not following that line of reasoning. "I think I've heard about that kind of thing," he lied nodding. "Now, I have some questions about the resulting hardware we now have." He then nervously looked over at something out of view on the screen. "For instance is there a way of dismantling the hardware after it is made into these 'digital worlds'?"

Janice cringed at the question, opening documents relating to the topic on her console and collecting her thoughts before replying. "It is complicated. You can move them, and even in many cases destroy the digital worlds that are created, but how they relate to the hardware itself can get a bit messy. If there are objects or creatures within the world then attempting to disconnect or disable the hardware could send them all back out, typically in a pile on top of the hardware itself, but the more common result is simply disconnecting the digital world from its tie to our own." After a moment of consideration she tapped a few keys and sent a file to the manager. "When that happens it gets rather dangerous inside the world itself as it can't draw power from our world anymore, so unless it latches onto something else it will drain the energy from its contents."

"Ah, that does not sound good at all," he said notably paler. "There are ways of making sure they are empty first, right?"

"That is harder than it sounds like it should be," the canine Team Lead admitted. "Some of the 'things' that get caught up in them are tied into parts of the walls and other physical structures of the resulting worlds. Those have too much energy and size tied into them to remove easily, and often trying will destabilize the world from the inside. Which is not a good way to do this either as the destabilization tends to be worse on the hardware itself." She rubbed her muzzle with some annoyance. "Letting it get separated from the hardware has other issues, as about half the time it still tries to latch onto something else. Best case it ends up linked to whatever natural digital worlds draw their energy from, but worst case it ends up taking over some other set of hardware you have."

"Suddenly I'm glad we didn't go through with my suggestion of just trying to turn them off," the manager complained. "We don't want the two of them we've got. The hardware to use them effectively is too complex for what we do, and we aren't looking to get into the mess of trying to have pokemon take stuff back and forth. Where can we get rid of them, and what is the fastest way to move them?"

"Janice, an option might be available," Metagross said with a fairly quiet beeping sound, one that she realized a bit belatedly was not understood by the human she was speaking with. "The Dark Network connection was being used for power use manipulation by Team Upload for their most advanced masking program. It might be possible to remote power a world that is being moved using a sufficient link."

"My team is letting me know that we might be able to implement some better options from what we've learned in the incident," she explained to the customer. "I'm afraid that I can't help with working out just what kind of agreement can be made for taking those on ourselves, but I can say that we have the people and knowledge to preform the move safely even without the improvements."

"That's a better answer than I was expecting at this point. We will get in touch with your contracting groups and figure out how exactly this goes," the manager sighed. "Thank you for the help, and have a good day."

Janice said goodbye herself and ended the call. "Please tell me you already have some working data on how to get Gazimon to power things," she instructed her pokemon harshly.

"Yes, three current methods. One of which setup to perform re-linking from one set of hardware to another, another for use on Box systems, and a third for more general use," the machine like pokemon replied happily. "Gazimon has even approved of the last."

"Uh huh, sure he has," the current pokemon sarcastically agreed. "He's going to be so happy with that while we're visiting my parents."

"We shall be accompanying you?" Metagross asked sounding nervous about the prospect.

"That's the plan. A-0 and Gazimon will be handling most of our work, with Shawn filling in as the human to put in front of the screen," she replied, then frowned at the end of her muzzle. "Not that I'm doing much better than him at that part right now."

\---

TyranoGazimon flopped onto the bed in her small room inside of Box 201. "I thought the weird stuff was going to slow down," she complained, and then scratched at some fur caught in the scales where the two met from her replaced arm.

"You're in the wrong place for it to slow down right off the bat," Delta 2 said walking by suddenly. "This is the place that has to sit tight and worry while things are going down, and then hurry up to fix stuff after it is done. We start up when they get a chance to slow down."

"The snake twins knew more about the things that happened to the plants out there than I expected," Tyra continued complaining without sitting up. "I've got a recording of everything they said and a pile of notes. Both of which I'm going to need to go over before I can even get started on figuring out what the implications are."

"From what I've heard so far digimon aren't as world altering as some pokemon get to being," the Porygon-2 noted entering the small room. "A temporary change to plants like that isn't uncommon for this sort of thing, but from the followup test with some basic digital plants it appears that Basirablemon is less dangerous to local ecosystems than Serperior is without evolving."

This got the digimon to sit up to look at the Administrator. "He can what?" she asked with a squeak.

"Serperior, if sufficiently motivated and using about the same energy it would take for him to evolve, could cause a forest to grow wildly into a dangerous and probably carnivorous state," Delta 2 replied nodding. "It wouldn't last for a long time overall, as it would end up killing a lot of the plants in the long run. The downside is that the ones that do survive would be extremely hostile, and likely need to be killed for the safety of others."

"And he can just make that?" Tyra said more curious than worried, having caught on that something was off about the statement. "That's a thing he's strong enough to do?"

"He's out of action for the next two days to recover from my ill advised idea to have him try and evolve like that so soon after the first time," the Chansey shaped pokemon admitted looking a touch embarrassed. "He's at the higher end of Grass typed pokemon out there, and he used enough power to take him out for an entire day. There are Legendary pokemon that don't use that kind of power without being at risk of hurting themselves." The Administrator looked her in the eyes. "A smaller area, or a single plant would be much safer, and doing just that is a common thing to do in serious battles. One plant can be more easily restored to normal, or justifiably be removed after the fact."

"So it's a matter of strength?" the digimon asked confused as to what this was meant to teach her.

"I'm trying to figure out if there is a difference in how digimon and pokemon impact the world around them," Delta 2 explained. "And the thing that keeps coming up when I look into things is that most pokemon can be traced back to the original Legendary pokemon. The ones that supposedly were used by Arceus to make the world a place where creatures could live." The pink polygonal pokemon rubbed her face. "Judging from the modern effects of pokemon, both normal and Legendary, on the world around them, and how digimon don't seem to have as much of an impact, I think there might be some truth to the idea. Pokemon are quite possibly the descendants of world shaping creatures, and have some of that power as a side effect."

"Pokemon are, world shaping?" the patchwork digimon asked, carefully holding out her saurian claw and clicking a small flame onto one of the claws. "Does that include me now too?"

Delta 2 frowned at the questions, then gave a short series of instructions on a way to move the typed energy inside of the digimon's body now. After two failed attempts the third caught, causing the lights to suddenly grow hotter and brighter in a strange way. "That is Sunny Day, a weather manipulation technique that can interrupt storms to a degree and improves Fire and Grass type moves while weakening Water type moves along with a few others."

"You just spent a couple of minutes teaching me how to change the weather," TyranoGazimon said dully, then looked down at her claws. "You just taught me how to change what the weather is. That's something you can just teach a Rookie."

"There is a fairly common TM for that move," Delta 2 confirmed. "Weather manipulation on a wider scale generally gets some attention, and if you throw off local weather patterns by using it too much you're basically ensuring that humans or pokemon living nearby are going to be mad at you for messing with things."

"Common. Changing the weather to your will is common here," Tyra complained falling back onto her bed.

\---

"So, good or not good?" Gazimon asked looking over the small cables extending out of the tiny box of Dark Network material he was mostly just playing with in their shared apartment.

"Eh, it could be useful if we run into more dangerous foes like Datamon was, but otherwise I'd rather avoid wiping myself out just to practice," Serperior replied quickly sliding into his upgraded bed. Where before there had been a mattress that was mostly crushed from long periods holding up the serpent's weight, now there was effectively a large flower pot with raised walls to deal with the occasional incidents of the pokemon turning to liquid while asleep. Gazimon was glad for the change to prevent him from waking up to a nearby pool of liquid reptile, and Serperior seemed to prefer sleeping on the dirt that they had filled it with.

"It sucks to use that much energy, but we might want to do it every other week or something," Shawn said similarly getting ready to go to sleep early from the tiring test. "That is the kind of thing we might be able to get used to given some experience."

"How much of the issue is you two having to hold back or being poisoned?" the digimon asked with a chuckle. "Seems like that probably wouldn't help."

"It would be easier with the Data Cube," Shawn confessed uneasily. "From what we've figured out so far each of the three has a context that makes it usable. Serperior can't give any energy to the Vaccine one, that apparently needs what you had when you got it. The Cube is based on teamwork mostly from what A-0 has scanned of its code."

"And what does the Viral one need?" Gazimon asked dubiously. "Because I've not had to think any specific way to use it."

"The Viral Tetrahedron works for people who decide to force an evolution in a situation where trying that kind of thing is a bad idea," Serperior answered. "So for you it was us trying again with Shawn's energy while you weren't compatible with him, and for me it was trying to use it despite it being basically made for you. It is compatible with me now, and we won't need to have that kind of situation again, but unlike you, my digimon evolution isn't natural." He rubbed his neck unhappily. "I think both of us are actually having the poison issue at the same time, mine is just also part of the body I end up in."

"Delta 2 said she might have some options for me on that front, maybe it would work for you too?" his trainer suggested uncertainly. "She had that smile though, so I'm a bit worried about it."


	52. 3-02 Toxic Treatments

\--- Toxic Treatments ---

Shawn looked dubiously at the strange smelling purple geode that Delta 2 was suggesting. "Let me see if I understand, this is a crystallized fragment of Kyroge's Water type powers, that was then tainted by exposure to powerful Poison typed toxins," the red eyed trainer said, getting a somewhat smug nod from the Administrator. "So instead of infusing any water passed though it with the ability to temporarily make the drinker become a Water type, it makes whoever actually drinks the result into a Poison type?"

"The resulting liquid is honestly a lot safer than just being in the same room as a friendly Muk, let alone the current effects of Serperior's new evolution on the two of you," the Chansey shaped Porygon-2 noted happily.

"And how long would I be a Poison type from drinking said 'water'," Serperior hissed glaring at the rock.

"A normal Clearwater Geode wears off in about an hour," Delta 2 said not looking at the snake pokemon.

"That translates to 'I don't know'," Gazimon said smirking at his teammates.

"There are only five documents on record relating to using tainted geodes, none of which actually go into any real detail," the medical Admin more complained than admitted. "There are over fifteen different ones covering the process of restoring one from a tainted state, another fifteen about general repairs if the things get damaged, but not one that actually says if a tainted one lasts a different length or not." She sighed heavily. "The best I got was a request by Professor Larch for any data we collect on them, as apparently he hasn't been able to get a tainted variant yet."

"If the guy who works on this kind of thing doesn't have one why do we?" Gazimon cut in, pointing at the geode.

"Apparently it is part of a 'common pokemon modification stuff' set Delta 2 made for me," TyranoGazimon said sighing. "I'm still going through the other stuff to see what all it is, and I have a couple dozen books to read now."

"I wanted to make sure to get you somewhere to start with adapting your prior work," Delta 2 replied, then sighed and picked up two bottles of water. "It will be fine. I might not be sure how long it lasts, but I do have ways of reversing it if there is a problem. Those are already setup and ready to use." She then carefully poured one bottle into the geode, and then using a small funnel poured the same liquid back into the bottle again, now a sickly green color with a hint of glow. She then held the newly converted bottle to Serperior, who huffed and took it.

The serpent drank the foul looking liquid uneasily. His coloration shifted immediately, with his yellow markings twisted slightly into thorny shapes while turning a deep purple color and the greens of his body also growing darker. The leaves he had along his tail and his leafy arms both similarly shifted to a prickly, spike covered variation, with the curls of the long folds along his neck changing into sharp points at the same time. The only real physical change that happened was a lengthening of his fangs to a notably longer state fitting with a venomous snake instead of his otherwise constrictor form.

"Huh, this isn't too bad actually," he said looking over the changes thoughtfully. "Although these hands are a lot less safe to handle things with, and I'm nearly biting myself with the fangs."

"It looks interesting," Shawn said walking around his starter while the Administrator processed the second bottle. "Is it at all like being Basirablemon?"

"A little, but not as gooey," the snake pokemon replied as his trainer completed the loop.

Delta 2 then handed the second bottle, now also converted, to Shawn. "Right, he wasn't the first of you two we wanted to try this for," she said as he took it with a bemused expression. The trainer somewhat smugly drank the liquid, although the taste was apparently bad enough to wipe the look off his face instantly.

This time the change was far more pronounced, but with the same end result. The human's body began to glow for a moment and then reshaped into a long tapered tube that when he stopped glowing was revealed to be an identical green and purple serpent. The two snake pokemon looked exactly the same, with the one and only exception being the mismatched eye colors. The two twin serpents then blinked, and closed their eyes with a synchronized groan, making even that small way of telling them apart hidden as a side effect.

"Well, this isn't great," they said together, looping around each other and only making telling who was who more difficult.

"Delta 2, what the hell?" Tyra asked looking at the result horrified.

"Something I actually half expected," the Administrator said with a hand against her face. "Shawn is just barely human normally, and it looks like this kind of change is enough to push him over the edge."

"Will I need to be made into a human again?" the red eyed snake pokemon asked glaring at the Porygon-2. "Because I'm actually not that fond of being stuck like this. Janice isn't the only one who would rather stay human in our little group."

"You should turn back when it ends, this is basically just the shape your body will have with this change, and probably others of the same type," Delta 2 reassured the trainer.

"So next up is trying the evolution, right?" Serperior jokingly asked stacking his head on top of the other serpent's.

"Ha, no. Right now, from the information I've got on your change to Basirablemon, it looks like the only thing that kept the two of you from trying to merge during the process the first time was that he was human," Delta 2 said shaking her head. "You'd probably end up a two headed version if you tried right now." Rather than discourage the pair this resulted in the two snakes looking thoughtfully at each other and shifting the pile their bodies were forming to make it unclear where the ends of their tails were. "Seriously, you two are at bare minimum waiting to see if you turn back properly first."

\---

"I note that the announcer is commenting on the combat power of the techniques during this event," Tyranomon noted about the otherwise cuteness focused contest his team was showing him on television.

"Yes, but the key part here is that it is based on the visual appeal of the results," Quagsire said not even bothering to sound serious about that fact. "Yeah, I think we forgot that some regions actually have a battle portion to these things."

"What about that dance thing?" Kabutops asked pointing to another tape. "I don't think that has any moves, and it did have a Dragonite in it."

"Isn't that the one where there is an entire mock battle to show how that pokemon evolved to save its trainer?" Dugtrio questioned looking at the pile thoughtfully.

"If we are looking for something without any moves or fighting we aren't going to find anything," Grant said absentmindedly itching at his neck plates. "I don't think even humans get away with never wanting to just have a fight with someone at some point."

"That is true," the digimon admitted. "Perhaps I'm going too far in trying for no combat of any kind being involved." He looked over his team thoughtfully. "Would you mind me staying with your team until I am able to determine what exactly it is that I am after?"

"Why are you even asking that?" Quagsire asked with clear confusion. "Of course we're going to help you out until you figure stuff out, that was what we said when we started after all."

"But we had thought that I knew what I would be doing," Tyranomon replied sadly. "You weren't planning on having someone along who wasn't helping out with your fights for some unknown time period, just having an extra fighter until things calmed down." This reply did nothing to clear up the confusion for most of his teammates.

"I think I know where he got mixed up on things," Kabutops said with a nod, then started to explain. "This team is used to having pokemon along for reasons other than what we normally do. Specifically fossil pokemon like myself were tagging along with these two, uh." He had pointed at Quagsire, but then after shifting to Dugtrio looked unsure of his statement. "Four? Anyway, what matters is that they are the actual team. The fossil was just there to get to the point where they evolved to see what the result was for research purposes. I'm not even the latest one to tag along with them, but I was basically dead weight for the team for most of my time traveling with them."

"It's a bit harsh to say, but you were actually one of the better ones we had to deal with," one of Dugtrio's heads said, strangely getting glares from the other two. "He was helpful with the sensor thingy," it then argued to the other two.

"I am very angry," the LAS suddenly said entering the oversized lounge area that they were using. "I am very angry, and likely will not be able to do anything about what is making me angry that will not make it worse."

"They aren't going through with making you convert more pokemon, are they?" Grant asked worried about the prospect.

"The alternative proposal that is receiving the most attention is to attempt to re-create the events that led to my formation in a controlled manner, to allow for the creation of new Analysis Systems," she replied with a huff before floating to rest at the back of the group. "This option is less desirable, likely on purpose to encourage the acceptance of the original as an alternative."

"Ouch," Kabutops noted. "Anything we can do to help with that?"

"Negative," she replied with a dull anger, clearly deliberately toning down her words. "Development team is working on possibly modifying the end result of the conversion process to be incapable of conversions entirely, instead of simply having the functionality restricted with the possiblity of reactivation. I have already contacted Salamence, and she has agreed to receive a change to have the same be the case for any she converts."

"Wait, I think I missed her being able to convert people," a different one of Dugtrio's heads said sounding worried. "Last I knew she was still prevented from doing that."

"She got that turned back on when Roberts had to leave," Grant said nodding. "Although from my understanding she's been unhappy with the responsibility of that part of her change."

"Wait, do these guys actually want to use the Analyzers, or are they just after the sensors you have?" Quagsire asked thoughtfully. "Because those things are the part that tripped up the dragon."

"The features they are citing as the most critical to preserve only cover the data manipulation and identification, with a secondary goal of providing changes to the target's type," the LAS said, with the panels of her dome revealing a number of scans from Salamence noting how the dragon had been changed. "In fact reviewing the details of the current plans indicate that this new alternative includes notes requesting method of limited or eliminating the capacity to produce Analyzer drones," she said after a moment of thought.

"Well, then it seems you have a workable solution for your issues at least," Tyranomon contributed nodding with a sigh.

\---

"Delta 2, I needed whichever of those is Shawn to be human," Janice said having called Box 201 to check in and see how things were going. "Actually, it didn't have to be Shawn, either one would have worked," she corrected keeping her voice serious.

"We have just a few more minutes in the best case," the Administrator replied meeting the Lucario's eyes. Around her the others had long past finished getting information on the change itself, and had as a result moved on to looking over TyranoGazimon's new gear. "If they don't turn back in the next half hour then I'm going to start trying to turn them back myself." Just as she finished speaking both of the green and purple snakes began to change again, the blue eyed one simply shifting in color and details back to normal, while the red eyed one glowing again and returning to a human shape. As a result Shawn and Serperior were once more leaning on each other, somehow shifting their position during the change out of a coiled pile of snakes to a standing human with a serpent looped around him.

"Have you told your sister that you found a way to turn him back and forth yet?" Janice asked looking at the pair.

"Alpha 45 is aware that this is a possible side effect, and I have been sending her updates on-" Delta 2 started to explain only to be cut off by a monitor forcing itself on to show the white and yellow Porygon.

"Sister, I require that geode," Alpha 45 demanded harshly. "Also your digimon, I need her too."

"I know that tone of voice," Tyra complained quietly. "That is a voice that means 'I have ideas and you are helping with them', and generally isn't one you want mentioning you specifically."

"Good thing you still recognize it," Gazimon agreed. "I think you were the closest to using it we had for quite a while. Etemon didn't exactly keep mad scientists around after all."

"I was hoping to at least do a physical world test to confirm the same results first," Delta 2 replied to her sister. "Mostly to confirm that Shawn ends up a pokemon there too actually."

"How long does this last again?" Janice cut in rubbing her face. "And how dangerous are they while being Poison typed?"

"Approximately one hour, and they know their bodies well enough that lost poisonous thorns are the only real risk," the medical Administrator replied, before looking at her sister once again to see if the additional test would be happening.

"You don't need the geode with them to do that test, have them take it out and get it started then send it over here," Alpha 45 said sounding a bit distracted.

"It seems we aren't being included in this decision," Serperior said to his trainer, who simply nodded with an amused expression.

\---

Grant's team returned to the Troubleshooter Lab just in time to spot a pair of snakes getting ready to head outside, with Gazimon holding the other Troubleshooter team's Pokedex. "Janice, what happened to our last human?" Quagsire asked with exasperation.

"I'm still right here, and will be back to normal after I finish interrogating my parents about their past," the Team Lead replied simply, earning a glare from the red eyed serpent.

"Very funny, I'm as human as you are right now, Janice," Shawn hissed with clear annoyance. "This thing only lasts an hour at a time and is supposed to help if we need the Ultimate form again," he explained to the amphibian.

"Why do you need to be a pokemon for Serperior to evolve?" Kabutops asked looking at the modified pair.

"Won't know for sure until we try again in a day or two, but it might change to both of us evolving into one digimon," Serperior unhelpfully noted, then laughed at the unimpressed look that the thinner fossil pokemon gave him. "Using it has been taking it out of the two of us partially because it has been effectively poisoning us, so we're trying becoming Poison typed to prevent that sort of thing."

"Right now these two want to see what kind of damage they can do to the environment like this," Gazimon noted with a tap on the case of the small research device. "I'm personally a bit worried we might end up needing help to get things back to normal after we're done."

"There is a plan for that," the twin snakes shot back at their teammate. "We should even be able to do cleanup even before we've turned back."

"It is a bad idea to try and have Grass/Poison pokemon try and fix a toxic spill," Grant said with the voice of experience. "They just make plant life that needs the toxins or that make more."

Both of the tainted Serperiors looked uneasy at this statement. "You've dealt with this kind of thing before?" they questioned. "It didn't look to be that big of a problem with the toxin exposure site we were at."

"Did they actually use part Poison types to clean up, or did they make you do it for them?" Quagsire asked looking at the pair dubiously, with them looking a touch embarrassed by the question. "Right, when we ran into an attempt using Bulbasaur the results were better than what the plants started off as, but still tended to not be as safe as they had been before the place got polluted in the first place."

"Great, maybe we should wait for it to be closer to the point when we turn back then," the pair complained, and then flopped onto the floor. "I already think I'm going to be able to do worse quicker now," the blue eyed one noted.

"You guys are kind of making it sound like pokemon change the places around them all the time," Gazimon noted, and then started to walk back to his usual console. "How big a thing is that really?"

"The Flameheart Glacier that is the center point of the local League is one massive block of ice that only exists because of the Ice typed pokemon that create it," Janice noted, to which the digimon responded with a curious look.

"To give an idea of why that's impressive, the eastern side of that area is a desert from the Ground and Fire types that live there. That's where our team was working before we ended up here," Quagsire clarified.

"The conflict over what your own portion of the world should be like is as old as the continents and oceans," Grant stated grandly. "Which is why the two pokemon responsible for making them in the first place had to be sealed away so they didn't dry out or drown the world respectively."

"I still don't understand what Aqua and Magma thought would happen when they woke those two up," Janice said with a shake of her head. "Although from what I've heard they are doing a lot better now with their new trainers."

"I'm not sure I want to know the details of that one," Gazimon said with a frown.

"Probably not, the recordings that survived that one are fairly horrifying to watch," the red eyed Serperior said seriously. "Somehow those teams unleashed the full power of those Legendary world builders, and it took a Rayquaza unlocking their own ultimate power to stop the fight."

"A copy of the recording is in our possession if you wish to see it," Metagross noted uncertainly.

"Given I had nightmares after watching it I'm sure that he doesn't," Janice said strongly. "Still the general idea is true, regions are as they are because of the pokemon that live in and shape them. How far that goes varies from place to place, and there are plenty of pokemon that can't do much."

"Right, now I want to see how this is different from what the Administrators do, because I'm starting to wonder if the whole 'digital god' thing the others have been calling me is just what is normal for pokemon," Gazimon said with a shake of his head.

"It is a matter of scale really," Grant said looking thoughtful. "A Pidgey can only really move around clouds, while I've seen a Pidgeot disrupt an entire storm, and Legendary pokemon can impact entire regions. You and Datamon are the upper end of the scale, while Tyra and those other Gazimon you knew were more like that Pidgeot or a Pidgey."

"Okay, that only tells me that you don't know how we did stuff back in the digimon world," the rabbit monster replied with a sigh. "Datamon was using tech to do this kind of thing, and even though he could do more with the stuff in his body than a Gazi could do on their own, that was only because he had that tech implanted in his body." The digimon considered what to say for a moment. "The other ways that digimon use to change the world are magic, or at least that's what I can think of to call them. Using spells and such to change the world instead of tech."

"Well, what about that tunnel and pit trap move you've got?" Dugtrio asked slyly. "You had that from before you were a pokemon, and it is rather good at changing the landscape."

"That would be an exception," Gazimon said with a gleeful nod. "That is one of the attacks a Gazimon has, and honestly the way I use it is the kind of thing you will only see in overly old examples of a digimon. Gazimon are made in a way that specifically lets us dig pit traps at the location of targets, like how the Stonescale Miners can find ore veins without understanding why they are important."

"Well then, are you up for demonstrating just how to do it?" the domes asked in a trio of voices. This earned the pokemon an amused look from the digimon.

"Think we can make time before we get into things outside?" the digital monster asked clearly already knowing the answer to the question. "Come on, let's head out."

"The Ground type can go with you, but I need one team at least sort of on call," Janice noted. "Unless you want me to just send in Stonescales and hope they find the right targets."


	53. 3-03 Team-building Exercise

\--- Team-building Exercise ---

Gazimon frowned and shook his head once again at Dugtrio's latest attempt to reproduce his pit trap move. Two days of work on it had not yet resulted in either of the them figuring out how exactly to get across its function. Nearby Quagsire was standing watch to keep her team member in line, a change that had come from the three headed pokemon proving themselves untrustworthy to work with Gazimon on their own. The small furrows and holes in the area at the forest's edge were a testament to their continued failures, and a task that would cut their time short in order to clean up.

"I can't believe we're doing this again," the Officer Jenny said in despair from just a bit further into the woods, while Shawn and Serperior prepared for another attempt at Ultimate evolution, now using their temporary Poison typed form. "How did you two convince your trainer to try this again?"

"Uh, I am the trainer," the red eyed serpent said sounding a bit embarrassed. "This is a transformation to make the temporary evolution easier on us."

"By making both of you into the same oddly colored Serperior variant?" she asked looking over at TyranoGazimon for confirmation, clearly because the digimon had the most advanced electronic device of the group.

"Actually turning into a pokemon is just a side effect of getting the Poison type for me," Shawn replied nodding. "The evolution turns my starter into one as part of the process, and it is one of those weird ones that needs to get energy from the trainer. I'm like this because there is some feedback when that happens."

"I don't think she needs the scare if things go oddly, Shawn," Serperior cautioned his trainer. "There is a chance that this time he will end up caught up in the evolution too," he then told the Officer directly. "We should turn back normally when it is done even if that happens, but we might end up one two headed monster or something."

"You're the guy who burned down that stand last year, aren't you?" she asked looking at the Grass/Poison typed snake pokemon critically, and their only response was embarrassed nods. "I was warned about you when I got transferred here, and it sounds like I didn't take those warnings seriously enough."

The blue eyed Serperior moved well away from his trainer before they started, and held the Tetrahedron a bit nervously. "Think that is far enough?" he asked as Shawn got out the Pokedex. The other snake nodded equally unsure. "Alright, here we go." He then was encompassed by the familiar glow of evolution, however, rather than stopping there it simply paused for a moment before rapidly extending to cover the other serpent as well before growing massively. The resulting digimon now possessed a massive head at each end of its long root like body, one with cold blue eyes and the other with sharp red ones.

"Okay," they said together in a ground shaking rumble. "That didn't go as well as it could have."

"So, did they just turn into one person?" Officer Jenny asked about the pair speaking together.

"Actually they do that 'say the same thing at the same time' thing all the time," Gazimon noted as he walked over with the two Ground types close behind him. "They apparently even did it before Shawn could understand pokemon and Serperior could speak human."

"Speaking human is the worse of those two by the way," the blue eyed head complained. "This is really weird, I can feel his head even, although I can't move it."

"You didn't mention that you could control the tar directly," the other head said, as the pools of toxic liquid on his end of the creature moved oddly. "Or just how powerful you ended up like this. I'm now a bit worried that we will run into a Corruption that becomes this strong."

"I'm increasingly convinced that the creatures you call 'humans' aren't real humans at all," TyranoGazimon said dully. "Because that looked just like two monsters merging to gain power to both my senses and this scanner."

"Given they were both pokemon at the time I'm not sure it is a good comparison," the Officer replied, although she sounded as if she was avoiding the topic to a degree.

"What is that?" a voice asked from the nearby roadway, soon followed by a murmur of conversation that approached. Four trainers appeared soon enough, a boy and girl pair moving fairly close together, and two more boys standing somewhat further apart in a way that implied they were traveling alone. The pair were clearly siblings, the boy having a blue themed outfit with typical markings of a Water type focused trainer, while the girl had a matching set of the Fire typed equivalents. The two remaining trainers were a contrast, with one having what was clearly a well used set of travel gear with a few newer additions that spoke of a recent chance to replace pieces, and the other dressed as if he had just walked out of a mine complete with emergency supplies and plentiful lighting options. "Oh, Officer, what's happening?" the girl asked.

"Something really complicated," the Jenny replied with a sigh. "The short story is that Digital Storage Solutions is working on some side effects of their assistance with an investigation." All four of the trainers looked interested at this statement.

"So these are some of their pokemon then?" the miner asked with a critical look at the massive Ultimate digimon.

"Technically," Gazimon said, and then smirked at the shocked faces his clearly understandable statement earned. "Let me guess, you four all just happen have a reason to be here?"

"They are probably the trainers who we are going to let have Stonescales," Tyra noted looking over the group. "Four of them are supposed to get here today."

"We met on the road a short ways back," the traveler said as an explanation and an agreement. "Then we saw this happening."

"I'll take them over to get them signed in and such," Quagsire said, and as the most recognizable talking pokemon she immediately attracted the most confused looks yet. "Come on, Dugtrio, let's introduce them to the madness."

\---

"Jim and Jane Felsic, trainers on their first League run that have already reached six Badges working together. Albert, seven Badge trainer who just signed on with Mechanical Insight Labs, the location that works with Alpha 45's Box. Colin Vein, a trainer guard for Continental Mining with four Badges to his name," Janice listed off the group of trainers as Shawn's team returned to the Troubleshooter Lab, still in altered forms.

"Actually I'm just a prospective member of the lab right now," Albert noted uneasily. "They want to see what happens here first I guess? They didn't mention a partnership with you." His gaze was locked on Grant and the Armaldo's team across the room. The fossil former human having been in a discussion on combat tactics during their arrival.

"Right. These four are here to try and be trainers for some Stonescales. Tyra?" the Team Lead said as she turned to look at the patchwork digimon.

"Right, we've gotten the Miners stabilized and have a working pokemon conversion," TyranoGazimon explained more towards the other DSS personnel than the trainers. "Two actually, one pure Rock type and one Rock/Electric." She pointed out two pokeballs sitting on the small desk area next to her, one with a simple stone sticker placed onto it and the other with a lightning bolt shaped one.

"So what do these minors look like, and maybe the majors too if you have one?" Jim asked with a tone like he was in search of a normal part to the topic.

"Miners as in 'creatures that mine'," Colin answered for the Troubleshooters. "Apparently they have an innate ability to find ores and such, and that's the part I'm here about." The guard appeared the most comfortable of the group, but had been carefully inspecting Janice the entire time they had been in the lab, as if he had seen her before and was trying to place her.

"So, are there going to be any humans coming for this?" Jane asked, finally causing the tension that had built among the new group to break. "Because I kind of thought that talking pokemon weren't actually a thing, and I'm starting to worry that I'm dreaming this whole day."

Janice and Shawn both did not take this question very well. The currently serpentine trainer slid up to one wall and leaned against it, clearly positioned to be standing when he turned back into a human. "To be perfectly honest we would have had plenty of human shaped members if I wasn't told to cover this problem before taking some time to visit my family," Janice said with strict precision. "I have held off a bit on resolving the current issue of my species in order to discuss some things with them, but it appears that we have some important trainers who need to get on with their already rapidly completed League run sooner rather than later, so here we are." She turned to look at the red eyed snake pokemon. "You were not expected to be here for another half hour, and we were going to have another human shaped teammate available by then."

"Ouch, that was almost as bad as the last talking Lucario I saw deal with things going wrong," Colin noted while the two siblings looked uneasy about being singled out. He was clearly using this chance to figure out if he had met Janice before in this shape.

"'Last talking Lucario'?" Serperior questioned, while the other trainers of the guard's group looked at him in a new case of confusion. "So Janice isn't the first one you've met then?"

"Yeah, said she was 'Eleanor Grades'. She was at the mine I'm working out of, there had been an issue with one of the rocks that we clean up for secondary uses," the guard replied easily. "Apparently a family doctor uses it for some special medication, and the guy we had doing the cleaning wasn't doing a good enough job. The medicine was being a bit more fiddly than normal because of it."

"I see," Janice replied icily. "And my mother took care of the issue with the medicine that keeps us human then?"

"Ah, yes?" Colin asked more than said.

"I think we need to avoid getting side tracked with other topics," A-0 cut in. "We can deal with humanity issues late-" The Porygon-2 was cut off as Shawn returned to his human form and Serperior's natural type also resumed. "We can explain all of the humanity issues later," the pokemon repeated strongly. "Right now our practical concerns are if this plan to give out some of the Stonescales will work. So, Tyra has told you that we have Rock and Rock/Electric as possible variants. What are the thoughts on that?"

"I'm going to have to see one," Jim said with his eyes closed. After a wordless complaint about from his sister regarding his attitude he continued, "We need more information, and we're not used to working with those types."

As a response TyranoGazimon took the pokeball with the stone sticker and let the Stonescale inside loose. The rocky reptile looked a lot sturdier than the creatures they had first encountered in the wake of Upload's attack, with strong well defined stone scales, and eyes that were clearly mechanical in nature. The digital pokemon looked around the room surprisingly more attentive than had been typical since the destruction of the original hostile version.

After a moment it locked its gaze onto Colin and padded over to him. "Friend?" it proceeded to ask the mine guard, to the shock of everyone present.

"Yeah, I am," the trainer replied. "They can talk too?" he asked, only to pause at the looks on the Troubleshooters.

"That is the first time one of them has spoken since we started working with them," Shawn said seriously, his eyes focused on the creature warily. "One of the same overall kind was able to, but it was, too hostile," he continued cautiously.

"Ah, right," Colin said with a nod as the other three trainers looked at them with some confusion. "It should be alright for this one though, right?"

"That is one of a lot of things we need you four to help us figure out," Gazimon said seriously. "It is a risk and we don't have time to find it out for them," he then said at the unhappy glance that Janice gave him.

"I was hoping to have a bit of time before to get them started," the Team Lead said, then turned to the mine guard who had started to somewhat cautiously pet the creature. "Tyra, let the other one out too so we at least have the appearance question out of the way."

The patchwork digimon did just that with a minimal amount of reluctance. The second Stonescale looked for the most part the same, with the major difference being a pattern of metal circuitry across its scales and teeth. This one acted more typically for the creatures, as it spent a moment to look over the group of new trainers, then flopped onto the ground to just lay there. "Great, this one looks fine," Tyra sarcastically noted.

"I think we need a lot more explanation to know what exactly is happening here," Albert said at this.

\---

Jane Felsic was having a surreal day. The plan had been simple, get a rare never before seen pokemon, help out a lab that just dealt with criminals, and then give her brother another shot at the Dark type Gym just next door. The two of them had both reached six Badges so far, but they were being careful to not mention how they didn't have the same set of six Badges. It sounded more impressive if they had both done the exact same challenge.

Instead of that simple plan she had met a pair of snakes that could merge into some unknown Legendary pokemon, a talking Lucario that was in charge of a box system, a room full of even more talking pokemon that the rest of the building's staff did not seem concerned about, her brother freaking out entirely in a way that probably looked rude, and a group of the most lethargic Rock types she had ever met.

Somehow that last one was the worst part of the whole day. Her new 'Stonescale' was the least intelligent pokemon she had ever seen, with the only saving grace so far being that it was already perfectly able to obey orders. Which was a good demonstration that they were artificial in nature. The only exception so far had gone right over to the miner, and given the way the other three had stopped for a moment to look at that trainer when they were let out, it was easy to see what kind of job these things actually wanted.

They were currently having lunch at the on site cafeteria after a long and honestly rather confusing explanation of how the Stonescales had been made, what they were expected to do if they agreed to take Stonescales with them, and what kind of things they were going to have to watch out for while caring for the pokemon. "So, is the talking Lucario normal?" her brother asked one of the nearby workers, and Jane wanted to slap him for being so blatant about the rather valid question.

"Talking Lucario?" the worker asked before his expression changed into amusement. "Oh, you mean Janice. She's a bit short with people lately because she overworked and ended up stuck as a pokemon again. Some kind of family medical condition, never heard of it before I worked here and she generally doesn't like people knowing about it."

"Wait, that's a family issue?" another nearby worker asked walking closer. "I thought it was just part of that risky digital world stuff that the Troubleshooters deal with, like how Shawn kept getting mixed up until he finally gave in and switched with his starter."

"You do know its just their eyes right?" the first worker questioned. "And yeah, that is most of the problem. I think those kind of risks are why Janice got put in charge there, so they had someone used to that kind of thing working on it."

Jane gave her brother a glare for setting off this small side discussion on the odd things that happened in tech support for the place's boxes. "So they all used to be human?" the well traveled trainer, Albert she thought, asked a hint jokingly. Given he might end up working with them she was fairly sure he was uneasy about the idea.

"Not entirely sure about Janice, but yeah, it is just a risk of that job I guess," the worker confirmed.

"Sounds about right from what I've heard about this whole Upload mess," the miner said to their group. "Part of why I wanted to come here was to see if any of the really weird stuff I heard about was actually real."

"I still can't quite believe that this kind of thing is real," Jane had to admit out loud now that the topic was being discussed. "I mean, talking pokemon alone is the kind of thing you only hear about in stories and folk tales."

"Oh that is a really new one for us too," the other worker agreed. "A good translator sure, we have the advanced tech to get one of those if we need one, but I figured that it would only be machines. Instead we had Serperior end up stuck talking, and he spent the first few days just complaining about that, followed by most of that Grant guy's team after he turned into an Armaldo."

"Not the Quagsire?" Albert asked faintly horrified. "Or maybe the Kabutops? Of that group I'd even say the Dugtrio was a human before instead of that big blue bug that didn't seem to know what century it is."

"Millennium," a third worker replied. "The guy ended up fused with a fossil pokemon somehow, and its brain seems to be in charge most of the time."

"Reincarnated," the tech support Porygon from the lab cut in. "Grant is a reincarnated Armaldo that disliked being human so much that he stopped." The pokemon then sighed. "Which honestly isn't any better, because instead of being trapped with a fossil in control, he's a fossil that barely cares about the human stuff he does know. We're working on it." The polygonal creature then frowned at the state of a coffee machine. "This is decaf isn't it?"

"You know that management doesn't want the dev team getting real coffee, A-0," the second worker joked, earning a glare from the third.

"I wonder how that Plasma stuff dad's always reading would deal with someone who wants to be a pokemon," her brother said quietly. "Or I guess a pokemon that was made into a human?"

"Your father actually reads the documents put out by Team Plasma?" the Porygon asked, genuinely interested. "Perhaps you have some insight into what exactly they are trying to say then? I must admit I find myself rather confused by their 'arguments'."

Jane groaned at the change in topic. "It is just the typical stuff about how humans shouldn't interfere with the 'natural order of things'," she said in an attempt to cut it off. "All sorts of stuff about how we should just leave pokemon all on their own somehow."

"Okay," it responded drawing out the word. "That is why I'm so confused actually. Where does this massive disconnect between humans and pokemon come from exactly? The examples I have read all seem rather loose in their descriptions of why things are actually a problem."

"That's half my problem with them too," Jim agreed, and Jane could only sigh at the conversation continuing. "All that stuff without any idea of what we'd do without pokemon, or that pokemon would do if we all just disappeared."

"Actually I am more concerned with how exactly they are saying humans don't belong around pokemon. It almost sounds like they don't think you are related to pokemon at all, and that they've never heard of humans that are also pokemon," the polygonal pokemon complained.

"Uh, most people don't turn into fossil pokemon or serpents," Albert nervously noted. "I think they are safe enough in saying those people probably count as pokemon instead of humans."

"Wait, what do you mean by 'related to pokemon'?" Jane cut in confused. "Humans are different, aren't they?"

"Well, the notable split was a long time back, but like most monsters there is still some viable reproduction in some cases," the Porygon said clinically. "That was when the monsters that eventually became humans started to keep their energy tightly stored in order to prevent carnivorous plants from stealing it from them, or worse storing them inside to be drained entirely. That defense had the side effect of reducing their ability to use moves, but the area where humans originated had a lot of those plants so overall that was a benefit for survival. Notably that is where the Sacculus Venator plants also were most commonly found, and it is these that led to the first trainers. Although that version of the practice did end with the extinction of those specific plants."

Jane barely followed that explanation, but one part did stick out to her. "What do you mean by 'their energy'? I thought that humans didn't have powers like pokemon do." Her brother nodded at this argument.

"How do you think teleporters work then?" the first worker asked with a laugh. "Everything's got energy in it, that's how we store stuff. Humans just have it all tied up tight so you need special stuff to move it around. Items are a bit better, and pokemon are really easy to turn to just energy."

"The only problem is some stuff doesn't turn back properly, so you have to have systems that block that stuff from being converted," the second confirmed with the voice of someone who did that for a living. "Not to mention that's how martial artists and psychics do their things."

"And some of those have energy that is loose enough that high end pokeballs can capture them," A-0 stated as a cap to its argument. "Which is where I get really confused about this whole 'separate humans from pokemon' idea, because some humans are pokemon."

Jane blinked at that statement. The workers looked like they only halfway agreed with the statement, but also weren't correcting the pokemon. "Is that why Shawn is carrying three now?" the third asked nervously.

"Shawn is too far to the pokemon side of the equation at this point to really count in that category," the pokemon said dully. "He should not be used as a measuring stick in that field."

"Where would your dad even get stuff about how Plasma thinks?" the first worker then asked cautiously. "I don't think they just hand that out all the way over here."

That was the awkward part of the topic that Jane had hoped to avoid. "His cousin is one of them, and sends the stuff over," she admitted. "I think he just reads it to keep in touch," she basically lied.

"Honestly, I'm surprised that A-0 is taking that as well as it is given that virus from them you dealt with just a little while back," the third worker noted, and at this the Porygon froze in the air.

"I had forgotten about that," it said with an anger that chilled her bones. "That does pose a concern. Have the two of you received any pokeballs or other electronics from your father or his cousin?" it asked overly calmly.

"We might actually," Jim said uneasily, and Jane could understand why. If there was a known problem with pokeballs caused by the team, then their father just might have given them tainted ones deliberately. "Nothing has happened with them so far."

"If you've used them with a storage system it would have been fairly obvious," the third worker said not much less angry than the pokemon. "We had one arrive along with a donated pokemon that caused the issue in our system, and it can take it a lot better than most."

"Dad didn't help us sign up for one of those," Jane noted unhappily. "How bad could it have been?"

"The trip to one of our storage sites for move development we will be going on would cause any that were present to be converted into corruption, hostile artificial life forms," A-0 said, still too calm. "Given the more direct nature of that kind of transport it would mean corruption forming right on top of us. I do not want to have you at risk of exposure to corruption, or to see what we have to resort to currently to deal with the issues." It floated over, clearly wanting to inspect their pokeballs. The two of them reluctantly picked the ones most likely at risk out for it to scan. "This one and this one have the same one we encountered before," it said causing a pink glow around one from each of them. "The others have something I am not familiar with, but clearly added on top of normal functionality. Which means we should go over them in detail before going any further." It didn't sound any more excited about the prospect than Jane was.

\---

"Right, Quagsire, you are going to be covering any digital world issues that show up. I've managed to put off anything regarding LAS until I get back so you shouldn't have to worry about that set of problems, but I'd recommend keeping her on hand. Say you need her for those problems while I have Metagross," Janice said while they had some time without the trainers around.

"That will mostly work, from what we've heard the three that work for Alpha 45 are specifically restricted from converting others," the amphibian sighed. "Has Gazi found those support manuals for the Dark Network yet? Because I kind of wanted to have our team go over those, preferably with his help, before we started supporting that stuff on our own."

"A-0 and my team will probably be doing the heavy lifting this time," Shawn replied still focused on the Stonescale speaking earlier. "You are using the new transport options to get there faster right? So it will only be one day?"

"Given I'm only staying a Lucario long enough to force answers out of them? Yeah, I'm taking advantage of our newfound ability to teleport across the entire region to get there fast," the Team Lead confirmed with a firm nod. "This last minute mess is honestly the biggest issue I'm sticking you all with that I actually know about."

"How long do you think this will take to get finished up?" Serperior asked unhappily. "Because I can tell that those two wanted to get going quickly when they got here, but they're looking worried now. About the only one who looks like they will be up for leaving anytime soon is the miner, and he seems to have his own set of tests to do first. I saw a whole bunch of rocks in that pack of his, and there is no way he isn't planning on testing the limits of the Stonescales."

"If I had an answer for that one ready then management probably wouldn't have sprung this on us," the Lucario complained. "Normally for a new Porygon setup you end up with a day or so of observation. Even a known Porygon creation method would still take a good couple of hours to go over all the concerns with keeping a digital pokemon. I had started making the plan for trainers taking them in general, but we might end up having to wing it with these four."

"I have a bit of experience with helping trainers that are reviving new fossil pokemon," Grant said thoughtfully. "Although not a whole lot. I'm fairly sure I always ended up distracted thinking about the past."

"You did," his Water/Ground typed trainer confirmed. "I remember three different times you went a bit too into detail about their historic diets."

"I'd say one and a half times," Dugtrio countered. "That one tried to eat me, which is what Grant warned them about, and we heard that his advice actually helped a bit with the second one."

"I already wasn't counting those two, there were two more times where it didn't help at all, for a total of five incredibly detailed explanations of what fossils ate what other creatures," Quagsire replied dully.

"Are you going to be able to handle this without me?" Janice asked Shawn, while the newer Troubleshooter team got lost in the details of why Grant didn't do well with past attempts to help new fossil pokemon.

"We should be fine," the snake eyed trainer assured her. "I'm sure that I can keep a handle on things, and A-0 is going to grind things to a standstill if anything looks out of place."


	54. 3-04 Family 'Secrets'

\--- Family 'Secrets' ---

The communication line transport method that they had basically copied outright from Team Upload turned a week long trip into a few moments of travel, assuming that you had a solid connection between the two places. Strangely enough this meant that the small town Janice usually met her parents in for their respective birthdays was actually a bit farther away now, as it did not have a good enough connection to the regional grid to safely reach compared to her home town.

Appearing at the local Pokemon Center out of nowhere was actually quite common for anyone with a Psychic type to take them places, so the most looks that doing this got her were actually people recognizing her currently canine form. This led to a few cases of catching up with people as the Troubleshooter Team Lead and Metagross made their way to her parent's home. This included learning that her mother had actually been sending her the better batches of the transformative medicine for a few months now, and had been staying a Lucario as a result.

"My mother has been a Lucario for months now because of this issue?" she half shouted at a long time neighbor. "We have been having issues with making more of it for months and she didn't think to even try and tell me?" she continued getting to the part that actually concerned her the most.

"She has been looking into other places to get the dust from," the older woman said with a bit of a laugh. "Don't look so glum, your mother has been keeping on top of that issue. I swear I've only ever seen you frowning as a pokemon."

"That is just how my face is shaped when I'm like this," Janice said mostly lying. "Is the stuff hard to get?"

"Apparently the quality you two need for that stuff is rather tricky to get right, if I am understanding her complaints about how this has been going correctly," the neighbor noted as they reached her house, and then looked slightly nervous at the sight of Janice's childhood home.

\---

"Alright everyone, welcome to day two of our little experiment to see if Stonescales can be used as pokemon effectively," Shawn said looking entirely exhausted. "If I seem distracted, it is because I am still tired from turning into half of a fallen forest god yesterday, and apparently we do actually have to have a human in charge of this."

"For the record, I'm actually glad that I didn't get this job instead," Quagsire said from next to A-0. "And yes, if you are wondering I am officially my team's trainer. I don't want to talk about how that mess happened."

"Now, we are technically a bit behind due to the discovery that Team Plasma malware had been hidden in your equipment. Normally I'd say it was a lucky thing for us to find out before we went in, as dealing with the side effects in my current state would be annoying," the red eyed human continued as if the amphibian pokemon had not spoken, but while still clearly giving her time to speak. "However, as you can see, A-0 is fuming over what exactly they found on your stuff, and the development team is going crazy trying to deal with it. So instead I'm just going to pretend that it didn't happen, that we planned on doing this today, and if need be deal with any remaining issues we missed." There was a sinister tone to the last item of the list.

"I'm fairly sure that you've checked everything we have that isn't stored somewhere, and you're also making us leave behind anything that is," Colin Vein noted a touch jokingly.

"I'm still a bit unclear on where exactly we're going," Jane Felsic added while uneasily tapping her new pokeball. The dual Rock/Electric type markings showing her choice of Stonescale, shared with Albert while her brother was instead going with just Rock.

"I've actually got a bit of a thing to go over with Albert doesn't-have-a-last-name," Shawn said, with Grant grumbling behind him about how that wasn't too unusual. "MechIn Labs actually works with us directly in this case, and I have a bit of a question for you, Albert. What exactly did they tell you about where you would end up working?"

"Uh, they said that I would be working at a secondary site that is doing active research into TM creation. I'd be directly under the site administrator, and they would have on site housing for me," the experienced trainer said uncertainly.

"Shawn, please tell me that doesn't mean what it sounds like," A-0 said bluntly.

"Mechanical Insight Labs has actually managed to get permission for what, as far as I can tell, is the first ever case of having a human living in a pokemon storage system, where Alpha 45 will actually be in charge of him," the snake-like trainer complained. "For the record they are offering you the chance to be a Porygon's on call trainer. Honestly, it makes enough sense that I'm a bit angry at how good an idea it actually is. I don't have time to train pokemon for her, and she really does need someone on hand who knows in practice what kind of stuff people would want her to work on for her personal projects."

"Not actually an explanation of where we are going," Jim noted uneasily. "Although it sounds like a pokemon is who we're meeting there?"

"Alpha 45 Box 45, one of my sisters, has her Box contracted out to Mechanical Insight Labs as a location to develop Technical Machines for them. As a result she is the most experienced individual we have with regards to how moves work," A-0 explained. "The Stonescales are currently unknowns on that front, and she's our best bet for figuring out what they can do without TMs, what they will need those for, and any other concerns of that nature."

Quagsire sighed after the Porygon stopped there. "DSS uses artificial worlds controlled by Porygon and made out of computer stuff for their pokemon storage system. It ends up being more of a ranch service than a normal box system," she explained unhappily. "You are all going into one of those that is controlled by a Porygon that spent months learning how to teach literally any pokemon how to use Acid Armor."

"What is 'Acid Armor'?" the Water type trainer asked looking nervously at his equally concerned sister.

"You know Vaporeon?" the Ground/Water type pokemon asked putting a hand over her face. At the cautious nod from the trainer she continued. "Know how they can turn themselves into water? That is Acid Armor." Serperior at this point decided that he should demonstrate by turning into a mass of sloshing serpent. "Like that," Quagsire complained.

"I'm still not convinced this isn't just some long complicated nightmare I can't wake up from," Jane said with dull frustration.

\---

Janice's childhood home appeared in many ways unchanged as she entered it quietly. The walls still had the same paint, the door still had that slight creak that you needed to move it just right to not cause, the floor still had a patch over where she had once smashed a hole to the basement during a tantrum. On the other paw, however, was the various knickknacks, appliances, paintings, and other objects that had typically filled her childhood home, and which all seemed to be in the process of being packed up for transport.

"Janice, wonderful to see you," Eleanor Grades said happily walking over from the other room. "You're here a bit early," the other Lucario said with a hint of embarrassment, looking up due to her daughter's height being a full head taller than herself. "We aren't quite ready yet."

"Mom, good to see you too," Janice said thoughtfully, while Metagross looked over the room with confusion. "I see that there are more things I need to ask you about than I had thought."

"Ah, yes. Your father and I have decided to move back to where I grew up," the older canine admitted. "He's missing the area a bit more than I am, but it would be nice to see my family more easily."

"And where exactly are you from?" the Team Lead asked pointedly. "I recently had a rather more detailed medical exam than normal, and discovered that according to that test my father was a Typhlosion. Which means that one of a few options is possible. The first is that dad isn't my dad, which I don't think fits my luck. Another is that dad somehow has a better way of being human." She looked questioningly at her mother and paused for a moment. "Which would be rather annoying. Or yet another is that dad was transformed into a pokemon when I was born."

Her mother spent a moment considering the accusation. "How familiar are you with alternate realities?" the older Lucario asked. "Not like the sub-realities you work with, but entirely separate worlds with their own past and rules."

"I currently have three different monsters from such a world working with me," Janice replied dully. "I'm currently not only looking for a way to get one of them home, but also trying to track a team of criminals that have fled to some random other world of the same kind. Frankly if you gave me a good enough set of coordinates I could probably make day trips to such a world given a bit of time to set things up."

This led to a moment of silence. "Transport equipment would be required to some degree for me to perform such a process," Metagross contributed in a clear attempt to fill the gap.

"Right, okay, so you will still be able to visit then," Eleanor replied with a sigh. "I'm from a world where, at least right now, humans don't exist. There are some legends about them existing at one point in time, but there are also a lot of ways of getting humans from other worlds to mine. So I'm not sure if the stuff that looks like it was made by humans was made by actual humans, or former humans."

"Honestly sounds like you could drop my entire team there and not see a difference," Janice sighed after processing the information. "How did dad end up there?"

"Well, that is something of a story," her mother admitted. "I was the first in two generations of our family to have flame vents again," she continued casually.

"Wait, you have those too?" the younger Lucario cut in to ask.

"You sound surprised," the older one replied confused, holding out her hand to show that a small ring of red was just around the edge of the spike on the back of it.

"I didn't even know I had them!" This was emphasized by poking the back of her head.

"Oh. That isn't the safest," her mother said somewhat faintly. "I thought you knew, it is why we've always called you our 'hotheaded daughter'."

"That was a pun," Janice groaned burying her face in her paws. "That had always been a pun."

"I sent you to school when you didn't know you could light people on fire with your head," the other Lucario said in the same tone.

"These structures relate to her father being taken into another world somehow?" Metagross asked in a mixture of confusion and amusement.

"Yes, unfortunately," Eleanor confirmed. "Training in how to use the vents properly was something that our family was known to need, but we didn't have anyone around at the time to teach me," she continued latching onto the original topic. "So, my uncle decided to use an artifact that one of our ancestors had retrieved from a Mystery Dungeon." She then blinked. "Uh, okay, that would take a while to explain actually, but anyway it is a place that you can find really powerful stuff."

"A small region that changes shape constantly, and seems to generate strange items and pokemon that don't seem quite real all the time?" Janice asked a hint uneasily. "Beta 32 made his world into something like that, and we still haven't managed to untangle everything. So far at least we have managed to keep everyone the same species while in there. Management is still mad about it, but there is a lab that found a place like that once before who contracted his Box for research purposes."

"I have not been asking enough questions about your job," her mother said dully. "Yes, those are quite common in my home world. My uncle had it reappraised, and it was determined to be an artifact that would bring a pokemon with flame vents directly to us." She shook her head and sighed. "It turned out to grab a human that would be turned into a pokemon with flame vents instead of an already experienced pokemon that could just train me directly. So there was your dad, suddenly turned into a Cyndaquil and quite confused, and there was me, mad about how they were going through all this trouble and even madder about how it turned out."

"Honestly I wasn't that upset with it," Janice's father suddenly cut in as he entered just behind the two of them. Her mother then smiled widely at the younger pokemon's failure to keep track of the approaching aura. "Things weren't going to great with my family around then, and I'd just utterly failed at trying to be a trainer." Jonathan Grades then chuckled at the curious look his daughter sent him. "Ironically enough it was because I started with a Grass type and they simply could not stand being around me. Made sense in hindsight. I guess we're talking about how we met?"

"I was going to cover the whole story, partly because it turns out that Janice didn't actually know she had flame vents." This was accompanied by a ruffling of the relevant portion of Janice's head. "I was mad enough to grab him and just leave right there. I was tired of being put to the side because of random bursts of fire, so I decided I would start my own Rescue Team to help pokemon that got lost in Mystery Dungeons," the older Lucario said with a joking tone that said she knew how silly the idea had been.

"After your mother explained that it was a common thing I was all for it," her father said shaking his head. "Then again I also spent a couple of days thinking, and then two more hoping, that it was just a really vivid and detailed dream."

"Then he evolved," the older Lucario laughed. "Out of nowhere, only a bit over a week after we met, he suddenly goes from being this tiny thing that constantly lights itself on fire to someone a bit bigger than me."

\---

The four trainers were looking around the simplistic features of Box 45 with amazement, while Shawn and Serperior casually leaned against each other from just how clearly tired the former was. "I thought that Poison type thing was supposed to fix the whole exhausting you issue," the local Administrator noted with some humor.

"Fusing together for the first time is the issue," Serperior said, sounding a lot more awake than his trainer. "I was mostly used to the extra drain from de-evolving, he's basically wiped from that part."

"When you said I was ending up in a storage system, I honestly was expecting a lot less than this," Albert said happily.

"Really? My site is still fairly simplistic compared to the later production runs," Alpha 45 said looking over the trainer. "So are you going to be up for working in an artificial world, on methods of teaching pokemon moves that they otherwise never could have learned, while following the lead of a pokemon that can alter said world to suit their will?"

"Uh, how far does that extend?" the nervous prospective employee asked. The other trainers shuffled slightly away from him while looking at the Porygon-2 with a bit of fear.

"Honestly? A lot farther than I'm really comfortable with," the white and dark yellow digital pokemon said without the slightly sinister tone of her question. "But I'm still able to use more direct methods of TM pattern implantation than are normally possible, along with some physical property manipulations, and of course I have some experience with magic that has some odd side effects."

"Magic?" Jane cut in sounding annoyed. "You are a machine pokemon, living in a world made out of technology, and responsible for making TMs, and you think magic is real?"

"Yes?" Alpha 45 said cautiously. "It is a fairly common topic when dealing with historic TM equivalents."

"So you mean ancient technology that we barely understand," the Fire type trainer said, her tone remaining disbelieving.

"No, I mean the practice of using metaphysical influences and non-standard energies in order to achieve effects that more mundane methods cannot," the Administrator corrected insulted. "Perhaps you would be willing to help with a demonstration of something I am working on using such things?"

Shawn perked up a bit at this, casting a dark look at the Porygon-2. "Alpha 45 Box 45, I am responsible for the safety of these four as long as they are here for the Stonescale move assessment," he informed her with an icy tone.

"Oh I'm fine with seeing this 'magic' that she claims to use," the female trainer replied sounding fed up. "I'm tired of hearing you all just claim that this weird stuff is somehow normal, so I'm more than willing to call out something like this. Magic isn't real." She seemed a touch desperate for the statement to be true, and her brother looked like he was half ready to stop her.

"If something goes wrong you are explaining this to Janice and the rest of Management," Shawn said still speaking with the same cold manner. "Is this something safe enough for that?"

Alpha 45 began to summon small items from across the Box and create an intricate pattern on a raised platform she created in front of the group. "This is actually the safest magic I've ever worked with, it has been in use for decades," she happily noted. "I am more than willing to go into the full history of it if you like," she continued clearly trying to provoke a reaction as the setup finished.

"I'm sure whatever fairy tale you have about this is great, but I want to see this 'magic'," Jane said with a now much more confident look, as the arrangement of small candles, stones, and powders was clearly what she had expected. "Do I just stand in the middle?" The Administrator simply nodded in reply and motioned for her to do so.

"Sis, maybe you shouldn't," Jim said in a clear attempt to calm down his sibling. "This whole place has been off."

"By the way, quick question. If you could be a pokemon, what would you be?" Alpha 45 asked, causing the three trainers not stepping onto the pad to pale.

"Charizard of course," Jane replied, then seemed to realize what the question was implying. She had just long enough to make a horrified face before a flash of light briefly obscured the pad. In the center, where she had been before, now stood a dark orange lizard monster with a single large horn jutting out the back of its head and a flaming tail. "Wait, what do you mean 'if I could be a pokemon'?" the Charmeleon asked in a scratchy voice that was recognizably Jane's.

"Huh, you're stronger than you looked. I was expecting Charmander," the Administrator said, while Shawn and Serperior simply groaned.

The new pokemon looked over herself with wide eyes, taking in the scales along her body and sharp claws on her hands and feet, and then with a bit of a twitchy motion brought her tail in front of herself to look at the fire on the end of it. "I can feel the flame," she said reaching out to pass a claw through the crackling fire. "Its sort of like hair," she continued with a fascinated tone, reaching up to demonstrate with the hair that no longer covered her head. "Where did my hair go."

"Fire types actually use flames for that surprisingly often," Serperior noted with exasperation. "Alpha 45, please, please, tell me this doesn't last very long."

"This particular layout is only for an hour at a time," the Porygon-2 smugly noted. "The process is actually used for a rather amusing purpose. Starshine Pictures, the region's big movie studio, uses this in order to get pokemon actors and actresses that have the skills that are usually only found in humans. Most of them use a different name in the credits for their pokemon form. Lana Fairview for example is also Flare Step the Typhlosion. She's actually been in a few more pictures as a pokemon than as a human."

"Flare Step is actually a human?" the new fire lizard asked sounding as if she wasn't sure if she was disappointed or amazed.

"This is used by Starshine Pictures?" her brother asked sounding far more interested in this than anything before. "Sis, this is something that actors do! Move out of there I have to try this." He then paused and looked over the setup more closely. "Actually, how do you do this? Is there a guide or something that would let me try this myself?"

"This right here, this is why doing that was a bad idea. There is always someone in the group who is interested in the end result, and then you have to deal with that new problem," Shawn said tiredly. "Magic is not something I am willing to allow you to teach, and it also isn't something safe enough to try on your own. If you want to be a pokemon that badly, we have other ways I can more easily get permission to do to you long term."

"It isn't the pokemon part, its the actor part," Jane said with an equally exasperated tone. "He wants to be one, and we had thought those were just really well trained pokemon," she continued, apparently having decided on being disappointed about the revelation.

\---

"After that I mostly made up with my family, although your grandfather never liked your father," Eleanor Grades continued the story. "A thing both of your grandfathers have in common."

"Yes, I've been called a 'mutt' enough to have an idea why dad might not want to get back to his family too quickly," Janice noted a touch tightly. "Would my other one be just as bad?"

"No, that old Lucario knows what he's doing," her father said with a nod. "Didn't like me, but still respected my accomplishments as part of a Rescue Team. Honestly, by the time you were coming along that he finally got me to admit that we should return to this world so that we could at least try and have you meet them."

"By that point I was quite excited about the idea of seeing what the human world would be like too," her mother said with a smile. "And then you hatched and I realized that maybe we would need to make sure you could look like a human while we were here."

"I'm still honestly a bit disappointed that I turned back," Jonathan Grades complained. "Bet you never thought you'd hear that, right honey?"

"One of my coworkers is a reincarnated fossil pokemon that pretty much moped the entire time he was human, and then got overly cheery after turning back into a pokemon," Janice said blandly. "At this point I'm getting used to that kind of thing."

"Right, when we are done here you are going over everything to do with this job you found," her mother ordered. "The medicine doesn't work in that world, but that is where we found the recipe. I actually got a few different things that supposedly would make a pokemon into a human, but that worked best when we got here."

"I have to ask if you still have those, because we have someone looking into that," the Team Lead admitted. "Also she might be something of a mad scientist that possibly cannot be trusted with such things."

"I'm no longer sure that we succeeded at keeping her safe from the strangeness of Mystery Dungeons," her father said half jokingly.

"She apparently has one at work, so I have so many questions right now," her mother bluntly replied.

"I think I've gotten most of the answers I was after, although I would like to hear more about how you are apparently moving?" Janice questioned.

"Unfortunately there has been an issue going on with the treatment," Eleanor reluctantly admitted. "I've managed to get things fixed for you, and I have a good stockpile you can take now to hold onto as a backup, but..."

"But my side of the family has been a bit up in arms about your mother spending time as a pokemon, and I'm tired of dealing with them," her father growled, sounding nearly like a pokemon himself. "I know the two of you like it, but honestly being back has been a bit of a trial for me."

"Aunt Lana isn't too bad," Janice argued, but still nodded at the overall statement.

"She's actually coming with us," her mother said with a laugh. "Actually, if you do end up having an easier way to get back and forth she might be able to keep her job more easily."

"Do I have to worry about the local movie studio deciding to move to another reality in order to keep their cast?" the younger Lucario joked with a shake of her head. "If you end up as pokemon there it seems that would cause some issues with them suddenly changing species."

"Not really, she actually kind of prefers the times she's been a pokemon more than the other ones. That's why she has more 'Flare Step' credits than Lana ones after all," her father noted in a bit of a better mood. At the confused look his daughter gave him he paused. "Uh, you did know that the studio has them turn into pokemon temporarily for some of their roles, right?"

"So, Aunt Lana is going with you to this other world," Janice said instead of replying. "When exactly were you planning on leaving?"

"We need to work that out with you actually. Packing is almost done, and we figured we would be mostly ready by the time you got here," her mother explained. "I was hoping to make it so you could get back to work fairly quickly after traveling there with us actually. I want to introduce you to my side of the family properly."

Janice sighed at this. "I think I need the full details on how that works."

\---

"So, that was magic?" the temporary Charmeleon asked, sounding as if she was a bit more willing to believe it. The group had been forced back to their original task by Shawn after hearing that her brother simply wanted an edge in his desired field. "I mean, if it is just that same setup all the time, how do you know it isn't some really strange science you don't understand?"

"Metaphysical influences and non-standard energies is a topic that covers a lot of capabilities out there that are generally best summarized as 'magic' to set them apart from 'engineering'. Not apart from science, which is used to figure out how to do both of them," Alpha 45 said distractedly, while she focused on looking over the four Stonescales inside of the digital attribute lab. "The easier part of that is 'non-standard energies', which basically covers anything that isn't directly translatable to a type or physical force. Some of those can actually be used on their own in technology, but a great many are too heavily influenced by metaphysics to be reliable in that sense."

"Do you mean like mine signs?" Colin asked thoughtfully. "Little patterns that some miners carve into rocks to help with things. If you're consistent with how you make them, then over the years they actually start helping a lot, but misuse even just one of them and you can break them all for weeks or longer."

"Exactly. This particular spell is safe because it has been researched heavily and is using a number of other older spells as components," the Administrator agreed. "Engineering uses the physical properties of matter in order to accomplish its goals, while magic uses the metaphysical concepts surrounding items, places, and actions in order to achieve effects. Unlike physical properties, metaphysical concepts can be changed, and can do so in ways you don't always expect."

"For example, if a particular type of rock is well known by local miners for one property, like how stable it is to cut tunnels through, but a miner used to it having a different meaning comes to the mine, it can interfere with how those little carvings work for a few days," the mine guard agreed seeming to be happy to have a familiar topic. "A time I saw that was when we had someone used to volcanic areas show up, and the mine signs for a fairly porous rock that was perfectly safe in our area went haywire for a good week after he left because he had been worried about odd gasses seeping through them."

"If you knew magic was real why did you let her get turned into a lizard?" Albert asked, still quite uneasy about the implications of that event.

"A lot of things that are what I'm calling magic here don't typically get labeled that outright," Alpha 45 replied, then paused in her work to bring a pair of TMs out of a flash of light. "How about a more practical demonstration. The TM on the left is an old style Dragon Breath that isn't really made anymore, while the one on the right is a new version just now being released widely due to my work." She moved them around the room so that all four of the Stonescale trainers could see them clearly. "Can you tell what makes them so different?"

"The left one is that old kind you can only use once," Jim noted confused. "It is one of the kind that can go bad too."

"That is the magic aspect of it. The difference is that the old style basically used a Dragon typed magic spell in order to provide the pattern, which means that it needs both the metaphysically correct internal components in order to properly make the pattern, but also needs the right kind of person making it in order to have those components work," the Porygon-2 explained. "I became something of a practitioner of magic as a result of looking into how older TMs like that one worked, so I can more easily pull off other kinds of magic because of that experience and history."

"So, if magic is trickier than engineering, and has lots of ways that it can go wrong," Jane said thoughtfully. "The other one is engineering."

"Correct, my job for that one was adapting this magical method into that purely mechanical method so that it was easier to make and maintain," Alpha 45 said happily.

"Which is also why the Acid Armor one ended up not working out as just a TM," Shawn noted, clearly still upset about the transformation. "Part of that one needs a magical effect. Which is why we would use magic instead of just engineering, some things are harder or even impossible without resorting to magic."

"Things like turning an actor into a pokemon?" the Charmeleon asked, giving a brief puff of flames in amusement. She wasn't as clearly comfortable in the body as Shawn typically was as a Serperior, but there was a lack of unease that clearly was getting to her brother.

"Like quickly and easily turning an actor into a pokemon with an easy way for them to turn back," Alpha 45 clarified. "There are other ways to make that kind of change, but they are generally not as quick or as easy to reverse." She then floated the more modern TM in front of the temporary pokemon. "For the help with testing that one out a bit more," she said dropping it into the Fire type's claws.

"You're letting me try being a Fire type first hand, and also giving me a brand new TM for doing it?" Jane asked with a sharp smile. "I wonder if it would work on me right now."

"Please don't try, I am partially responsible for enough humans turning into pokemon for a lifetime already," Shawn complained tiredly. "You are like that because of magic, and we just went over how magic depends a lot more on how things are thought about than anything. I'm not that familiar with what they do over at Starshine Pictures, but using a TM probably will mess with how human you are at the end of it."

"They use TMs there," Alpha 45 countered. "I specifically chose this spell because of that part. It is fairly common thing for them to use TMs to learn moves for the films. The spell accounts for that kind of thing and puts the target back into a human better than most stuff. No risk of triggering a pokeball if they don't already."

"Do they still know the move after changing back?" Serperior asked pointedly. "Because I'm still working out how to deal with this trainer knowing how to use moves as a human," he continued poking Shawn with the end of his tail.

"Uh, well. Maybe? The documentation is a bit unclear on that part. If so then the ability will be far weaker than Shawn could have managed before your swap," the Administrator confessed. "Ok, it might not be entirely safe to use it on yourself."

"Jane," her brother said nervously. "Please don't make me have to explain to mom why you are able to light things on fire again."

"But think of how dad will react to me having a move," the reptile said jokingly. "That's almost as good as you explaining how your first film role is going to be as a pokemon to him."

\---

"Can I bring along some coworkers?" Janice asked after her parents finished going over the details of how they had been able to go back and forth between the two worlds. "It isn't that I don't trust this other world, but I'm kind of used to having some powerful backup when going into this kind of situation. Not to mention you might have some better ideas on how to get Grant working in civilization again."

"Why does Grant have problems with civilization?" her father asked slowly.

"Long story, I think I might want to explain the job thing all at once. Anyway, it would be just his team at most. Four pokemon, two digimon," she replied with a mixture of exasperation and absentmindedness.

"'Digimon'?" her mother asked, then shook her head. "Right, it should be fine for them to come along. Although I'm guessing that your own long story is going to explain more of why you want them along?"

"Yeah, they're in a rough spot overall from the stuff that happened to them, and a world with just pokemon might be a good thing for them to see," Janice confirmed. "Maybe. Not sure how well Quagsire will like it."


	55. 3-05 Recreations

\--- Recreations ---

Jane Felsic woke up to the comforting sound of a small fire crackling near her. Her eyes opened to the sight of flames resting just in front of her face, immediately bringing up embarrassing memories of winter nights where she would wander too close to the fireplace and simply fall asleep there.

The difference this time was the sensation coming from those flames, and more importantly from the tip of her tail in the center of the tiny fire. The day before had apparently actually happened, including the incredibly embarrassing phone call to the movie studio to learn that a TM would actually extended the time she would spend as a pokemon by a full day. Somehow, the disappointed face of the Lucario, who had returned right in the middle of the call, was far worse to see as a Charmeleon than it had been two days ago when she was still human. With that far more embarrassing thought running through her head she curled herself a bit closer together, so the the flames would block out more of the small room that had been setup for her and her brother.

"Jane, when did you get a Charmeleon?" said brother asked, clearly having both just woken up, and forgotten what had happened. "I thought dad ruined that for you," he continued, bringing up bad memories.

"It's me, Jim," she complained with an annoyed tone, regretting that his question meant she had to get up properly. "Remember how I got you your interview by getting myself stuck like this?"

"Oh," he said faintly as she stood up, and realized that she was now somewhat shorter than she had been as a human. "I was kind of thinking that was just the end of the whole dream about the land of talking pokemon, but I guess not."

It took her longer than she liked to realize that he was including her in that statement. She responded with a puff of purple flames that would bypass his preferred type's typical resistance. While the consequences of using the TM were not the greatest, the benefit looked to be quite useful. "Hey, I'm not one of them, and you are apparently planning on doing this all the time," she argued.

"You are a talking orange lizard, that counts sis," he replied, then looked a bit sad. "Although I think I'd rather it be a new pokemon for a team instead of you."

She snorted a bit more fire at this. "You know I hate to be reminded of that," she complained, then paused as something occurred to her. "We told mom we'd call her today, didn't we?"

Her brother looked as horrified at that as she felt.

\---

"When you said 'until I get back' I kind of assumed you meant farther off than the next day," Grant complained.

"So did I," Janice complained right back. "Deepstone appears to have decided on using the original code."

"Are they going to be including the scanner system Grant was using it on too?" Shawn asked giving the LAS a sympathetic look. "Or are we going to have to explain to them that those details matter when using something like this to recreate things."

The Lucario gave the both of them a tired and annoyed look. "They had scheduled three attempts, while signing off that they understand doing so may result in multiple life forms that do not match their goal," she dully specified. "First is without that part, second is with it, and the third I've managed to tie up a bit because they are asking for a conversion of a systems holding just their base code with the Upload world creation method." She then looked over at the doorway. "They are taking advantage of miss Char's little delay in that project to push this one up to before I head out again."

"Do you really think that Tyranomon might get some help in this other world you want us to follow you to?" Quagsire asked with a sad tone. "Because I'd like to give some good news to my teammates sometime soon."

"At minimum it is probably a bit closer to his world than ours is," the Team Lead replied sadly. "There is one positive out of this mess, they are willing to have us make the call on if this is safe or not. So if things go wrong with the first one I should be able to shut the others down."

"Ah, that kind of positive," Gazimon complained. "I see that my Network is supposed to be handling this?"

"The Dark Network is part of my plan actually," Janice said shortly. "I'm fairly sure that you can use that to keep control of the target area outside of the area itself. So we don't have to risk an Administrator getting controlled again. I've managed to move it to a planned expansion to the warehouses that is also being pushed through to help with that."

"Planned expansion?" Shawn asked dubiously. "They actually convinced someone to make new worlds just for storing stuff?"

"It's digital worlds she had me spend yesterday moving over here," Gazimon continued complaining. "Apparently Metagross has saddled me with salvaging any of those that the old targets don't want to use themselves."

"Yes, I have lots of people complaining at me about decisions I didn't actually make," the Lucario said harshly. "I'm doing my best here."

"Can't we wait until after I turn back?" a voice then hissed from just outside the room, clearly attempting to be quiet.

"Jane, I don't understand pokemon," another voice said a bit more loudly, and made the room realize that the first had in fact been just a hiss. "So you really shouldn't try and talk like that when we get to a phone."

"Enunciate," Janice dryly advised the Charmeleon. "Pokemon don't typically speak completely clearly, so it is easier to keep speaking human if you focus on how you are saying things." She then turned to the door to see the two Stonescale trainers entering reluctantly. "Now, you apparently are looking for a phone to use?"

"We promised our mother that we would call today to let her know how things were going," Jane replied, clearly deliberately ignoring the advice, and as a result her growling response contained no human speech at all.

"We need to tell our mom that this has happened, among other things," her brother said with a sigh, clearly thinking they had not understood his sister.

"Good," Janice said with a strong nod. "I was going to get the two of you to make that happen anyway. I'm not having this kind of issue kept from parents." She turned to the remaining human shaped member of the Troubleshooters. "Shawn can help you with that and explain why he let that happen."

"I can explain why I let it happen," Serperior countered. "Shawn honestly shouldn't have even gotten up yesterday. I was barely keeping him going, and should have just canceled the whole thing."

"That, isn't reassuring," the Charmeleon responded uncertainly, finally managing a human statement. "Are you guys really in that much of a bind?"

"We have a bunch of smaller problems that the big one caused that we need to untangle, your group included," Shawn replied sadly. "I recommend not doing much with the Stonescales today. Maybe try the local Gym if you don't have that Badge yet."

"We've actually been here before," Jim admitted, earning a dark look from his sister accompanied by a short burst of flame. "She got the Badge and I didn't, and somehow thinks that means something."

"You both already have twice the Badges I earned on my run," the red eyed trainer said with a laugh. "Although I can say that different trainers are better at different Gyms with some certainty. How long ago did you challenge Grim?"

"Second Badge for me, would have been third for Jim," Jane admitted, scratching at her head in the small area under her horn at the back. "We aren't from too far away from here all things considered."

"Then you probably have enough experience now to know what you did wrong then," Shawn argued, then motioned the pair out of the room. "Come on, let's start with that phone call."

\---

"Walter," Grant said darkly as the other Deepstone representative arrived in the Troubleshooter Lab for the process. The monitor array was being used to show the contents of the two target digital worlds, both currently partially infested with the black cables of the Dark Network.

"Ah, Grant. You look a lot more dangerous in person," the scientist he had called during the Upload situation noted, having entered to glares from all of the pokemon members of the fossil's team and the LAS herself by being involved in this project. "Um." He turned to Janice and the two Gazis in a clear attempt to find some help, only to note that TyranoGazimon was the only one with an expression that was even vaguely kind. "I'm guessing that Mike did not actually make sure this was a good time for this?"

"No, he had not," the LAS darkly said, transcripts of the previous calls regarding the event appearing on her dome's panels. "Not that I wish to have this happen at all. I do not see the need for more of my kind."

"Uh, wait a moment," Walter said looking at one of the text representations. "Wait, what does that say?" Reluctantly the LAS moved closer so he could read it more clearly. "Who signed off on? Alright, the way I understood things we were going to just be using the Legendary Analysis System code in your method of making code into living creatures," he explained looking somewhat angry himself now. "I personally had hoped that you would have ended up a Porygon from the start. I was involved with trying to get that code working as a basis for one after all."

"And the second test?" Janice asked bringing up the original plan, including the third one clearly marked as scrapped. "The one that completely re-creates the conditions?"

"Isn't that only if the first doesn't create anything?" he asked sounding confused.

"Our incarnation system always converts this kind of code into a life form," the Lucario replied darkly. "We are definitely getting something out of the first one, the only question is if it is going to be something we can afford to leave alive."

Walter looked over at Grant. "Do we have some time to give me a bit more backstory on this? Because I feel like someone's gone around me on this one," he said, earning a sarcastic laugh from Gazimon.

"Nope, slot's been filled and we have our management strangely focused on rushing this to production," the digimon said fiddling with a clearly Dark Network infested console. "Who else wants to bet that someone is after one that wants to convert others, and thinks this is a good starting point?"

"You not being fully informed is not going to be enough for me to justify pulling the plug," Janice confirmed sadly. "Right, that makes everyone thinking this is a bad idea. I guess that means we should just get it over with."

The LAS deflated noticeably at the half sarcastic suggestion. "Agreed. Simply having this done and over with is preferable," she agreed shifting her panels to show a solid blue shade.

"I need the copy of the base code you were supposed to bring," Gazimon noted unhappily. "Preferably on at least two separate data storage mediums. One I can put on this sensor unit for the second test." He tapped a small box sitting on the desk. "And another for this test."

"If only one such device was provided I can create a duplicate," Metagross contributed. "I have access to the physical medium system," they then said at a look from A-0. "Porygon made data storage might interfere with the end result."

"That is actually a really good point," the rabbit monster noted with annoyance. "We should use the pad transporter for this one."

There was a bit of shuffling at this point to create a copy of the code, followed by a brief debate on the exact make of storage unit that would be best to use. After that had finished they finally set the selected device onto the pad, and proceeded to send it into the first of the two containment worlds.

The screen showing the arrival of the device revealed a longer than typical flash, that ended to reveal a bird-like polygonal shape. The pink and blue creature looked around the area in clear confusion. "Hello? What is happening?" it asked clearly.

"That's a Porygon," Janice said darkly, then rushed over to her console to see the scan results. "That is just a Porygon."

"I don't understand," the LAS said staring blankly at the screen. "Has the data been modified since my creation?" she asked quietly.

"No, this was an archived version from when you were put into the scanner unit," Walter said sounding a bit horrified.

"Is there a Legendary here for me to inspect?" the new Porygon asked.

"We are working on a project that required your creation," Gazimon said over the Network to calm down the created pokemon. "We will get with you in a moment, please be patient."

"Send the scanner alone," Janice said with a calm serious tone.

"Alone?" the rabbit monster asked turning to look at the Team Lead.

"The scanner system was the other thing present when the LAS was made," she clarified. "So if we send it alone, we will get whatever is made out of any code it has by default." It was clear she had some idea of what would happen.

Somewhat reluctantly the others unpackaged and started the new scanner device, and then placed it on the pad to send to the second digital world. "Transporting now," Metagross said uncertainly. After a moment the device appeared in the second world, with a small dome shaped digital life form shuffling around. "Oh," the Steel/Psychic said at this. "An Analyzer drone has been formed-"

"What?" the LAS asked sharply. "What? Data error! Explain! How?" she continued desperately.

"I think I'm going to," A-0 said darkly at the panic from the digital jellyfish. The bottom middle monitor of the array then shifted to a screen showing a vast digital ocean doted with islands, and a Manaphy shaped Administrator. "Charlie 80, when the LAS was brought into your Box, how many targets did the incarnation system convert?"

"Um, well, that's kind of a funny story," the Water type Administrator dodged the question while Grant's team rushed to calm down their fellow team member.

"Why exactly did you want the LAS left alive?" A-0 pressed firmly as the LAS began to audibly cry, a few drops of water slipping off her form.

Charlie 80 let out a sigh, looking unhappily at the crying digital life form. "There were two targets. One registered as a successful Porygon creation, with a request for a pokeball, and another for some corruption. By the time I realized what had happened, the Porygon had already been fully infected," he confessed.

"You've known that she was a Porygon this whole time and you haven't told anyone?" Janice sharply questioned. "We have procedures for this kind of thing, and Delta 2 might have been able to do more for her if we'd known that-"

"The corruption was total," the Administrator countered cutting her off. "By the time I was able to isolate her so it couldn't spread to the Kabutops there wasn't any Porygon left. After that she took me over, and it was all I could argue to get her out alive. If you'd known that she'd eaten a Pory-"

"Is a Porygon," TyranoGazimon continued the theme of cutting others off. "That honestly answers some questions I had about the process. She has a number of advanced features not present in either Salamence or the Analyzers themselves, and the common features all seem to be Analyzer related. She apparently is what happens when a Porygon is merged with one of those things."

"To be fair to my brother," A-0 said somberly. "I don't actually know if I would have realized the difference at the time. Has he been kept up to date at all on further developments with the LAS?"

"No," Janice admitted. "Which almost justifies him keeping this information from us."

"I'm taking my team to Box 201," Quagsire said forcefully. "Does the new Porygon need a checkup too while we're going there?"

"Already the plan," Tyra complained with a loud sigh. "Gazi should have the transfer setup already." The other digimon nodded to confirm.

\---

The small conference room that Shawn led the two siblings into for their call featured a digital variation on an Oran plant. Both of the Troubleshooters were quite surprised to discover this, as it was not one of the plants they had worked with so far. As the Fire and Water duo prepared themselves to explain their current situation the two Grass types confirmed that the source had been a berry plucked by someone else working in the facility.

"You know, this might be a problem," the snake pokemon commented, while the Charmeleon argued with her brother again about just waiting until after she had turned back. "I think these pots are for people to grow a set of berries they have on hand inside of, and now there's this bush that won't go away in it."

"We'll have to talk with Delta 6 about it," his trainer agreed. "Although that second one we put out front is drooping a bit after that rush of Gym battles."

"Alright, let's get this over with," Jane complained drawing their attention. They noted the number that had been put in, then watched as the screen very briefly confirmed connection, and then shifted to static with an evil cackle.

Suddenly a purple pokemon flashed into existence in front of the group, its form appearing largely like two cone shaped pieces of fabric connected together by rounded segments with the largest having a face. "Ah, wonderful. I was really counting on that one working for this," the Mismagius said clearly. "Easy access to the rest of the family." It looked over the two siblings, pausing at Jane's current form. "And it looks to be basically halfway done for me?" the Ghost pokemon said sounding a bit unsure at the presence of the temporary pokemon.

"What?" Jane managed to ask before the fabric pokemon created a glow around her body.

"Just need to get the durations all lined up, and handle the brother," Mismagius said professionally. A flash of light obscured Jim's form, replacing it with a blue and yellow frog with his long pink tongue wrapped around his neck like a scarf. "And there we go. One family curse, courtesy of a father not listening."

"Excuse me, but as I am currently responsible for these two right now I'm going to have to ask for an explanation of what just happened here," Shawn coldly stated, fixing the Ghost type with a harsh glare that froze her in place. "I am already having enough issues with the first case of this happening to them you see." The pokemon's eyes darted to the green glowing blade in the trainer's hand, and then to the snake pokemon looming behind him.

The somewhat manic professional air that the Ghost had been giving vanished suddenly. "Ah, sorry. I just have to make it stick to the whole family or there can be some backlash on them later," she rapidly explained. "It is only for a week, a short little time being a pokemon to show why, um. It's kind of a long story so I can I start over?"

The Leaf Blade dipped a bit, but did not go away, and Serperior rested a bit more easily on top of his trainer. "R-Right, so I live in this mini-'tina's house place, and he was talking about how his brother had some trouble with some guy messing with the brother's place. They mentioned the location, and I remembered the town being where I lived back before, you know, I died. I was a human back then," she rattled off quickly. "So I decided to take a quick look around and see if I could try and scare the guy straight, do a good deed."

"Make sure I remember that a type advantage isn't a big enough difference for those two," Jane hissed quietly to her brother, the pair holding still in the face of the Troubleshooter's obvious anger.

"So I decided to start at my old home, and it turns out he was right there," the Mismagius then looked rather nervous about the results of the visit. "So I started the whole explanation for him, to make sure it was the right guy and that he knew why a Ghost was after him. Then, it kind of gets a bit silly." She sighed. "I tell him that I was a prior owner of the house, he says that pokemon don't own houses. Now that's all kinds of wrong, but I still corrected him that I had been human at the time. He says that isn't possible, that humans can't become pokemon. Now, that's strike two on saying I wasn't the owner before, and I was there to curse him already." Shawn and Serperior both frowned knowingly at this. "So, I tried to explain again that I was a spirit of a dead human that had owned the house before him. Then, he insists that humans become human ghosts, and only pokemon can become pokemon ghosts."

"Strike three," Serperior groaned. "Your father is an idiot. You do not argue with the Ghost that is there to curse you unless you want to make it worse. You get them out of there, and then find a way to fix things," he then said to the Felsic siblings.

"You weren't able to keep it from getting this bad?" Shawn asked sympathetically. "Maybe restrict it to just him?"

"It is a family home now, and he was arguing with the ghost of a former owner. The rest of their relatives are honestly lucky I was able to keep it to just the ones who claim the house as their home," the Ghost pokemon replied sadly. "With him being so focused on how I couldn't be a pokemon I was either going to have to make it turn them too, or have something worse that lasted longer."

"For the record, this kind of thing is why Alpha 45 isn't going to even attempt to teach you magic," Shawn complained to the new Greninja. "There are lots of things that will impact the end result, and you can't always predict them or compensate for the fallout."

"Um, Alpha 45? Like, Alpha 30, or Charlie 13?" Mismagius asked somewhat faintly, as a black polygonal patch appeared underneath her as she said the final name. "Oh. You're Shawn aren't you?"

A large black colored claw like set of polygons with red tips then emerged from the digital shadow to grab onto the Ghost. "Get back in here!" a familiar voice rumbled before dragging the pokemon out of the universe.

"Well. Looks like this is still a problem we caused," Shawn said annoyed. "Serp, when we're done here we need to let Charlie 13 know that he's in trouble for this one."

A minute of uneasy silence followed, finally broken by Jim poking around his body. "Oh, yuck. This is actually my tongue, this is my tongue," he said quickly untangling the body part and rapidly pulling it into his mouth. "Why do they do that?"

"I think 'we' is the word you're looking for," Jane sighed rubbing her face with a clawed hand. "Given that you are one of those ninja frogs you like so much now. A full week of this?"

"You'll probably have a good idea why Janice is so mad by the end of it," Shawn said tiredly. "Now, if you could try and call again?"

The Charmeleon nodded unhappily and once again dialed the number. This time the screen cleared to reveal a large green toad with a massive flower growing out of its back. "Oh, the Ghost got you two didn't it?" their mother asked sourly.

"Technically, I had already been turned into a pokemon by something else first," Jane complained. "Was dad really as bad as the Ghost made it sound?"

"Your father definitely earned this one," the older pokemon rumbled, clearly used to their father acting in this way. "The Ghost really looked like she was less happy with the result than he deserved."

"We got that impression too," Jim sighed rubbing at his bare neck. "Where is dad anyway? I'm wondering if he continues the frog theme or is a lizard instead."

"Your father ran away to 'prove' how pokemon and humans should be separated somehow," the Venusaur said dryly. "I've been talking with wild pokemon all morning trying to keep an eye on him. Considering he's only a Nidoran, I'm thinking I should have just shoved him into a pokeball and waited for this week to be over."

\---

"So, our day was terrible, how did your- Why is he a pokemon too?" Janice asked with a groan as the group that had gone to the phone returned. "We have enough problems without losing more humans."

"One of Charlie 13's Ghosts got out and decided to hit the guy who donated the Magmar with the tainted pokeball to us," Shawn and Serperior said together. "Turns out that was their dad, and she ended up hitting the entire family." They continued past the door and immediately went to start up communications into Box 113. "Charlie 13 also can apparently get out of his Box now."

The Lucario sighed heavily and roughly pushed her aura sensors back, with the metal foil around them shifting heavily as she did so. "Right, small problems first. You, frog, your neck needs more moisture than that, stop scratching it and just put out your tongue. Char, go burn something. We have to have somewhere for that, and you look like you need it. Have your whole team join in. Snakes, we don't have any issues that are time sensitive right now, so take a seat and find a good distraction that isn't bothering Ghost Dragons," she said harshly while walking over to the transport pad. "I'm going to check on the others." She then vanished in a flash of light.

"To be fair, she was waiting for you four to show up before she went to do that," A-0 noted dryly. "Things got bad, Shawn. Worse than my Porygon-Z brother managing to get out." The digital pokemon turned to face the remaining human sadly. "The LAS is a Porygon, infested by the first Analyzer."

"How long are all of them going on vacation to another world for again?" the snake eyed trainer asked tiredly. "Because it sounds like it won't be long enough."

\---

Janice arrived in Box 201 to find TyranoGazimon and the new Porygon going over the latter's condition with the Deepstone scientist, who looked just as angry as the rest of the group. "I'm shutting this little project down," he said to her as soon as he spotted the Lucario. "You don't go around sticking mushrooms on random pokemon just because that works for Paras, and you definitely don't use code that makes the Porygon you were always after in a way that makes an injured pokemon."

"How bad is it?" the Team Lead asked Tyra, slightly shocked by the harsh declaration.

"Half the reason her body has been so fragile is that it overwrote some of the physical components of her body during the change," the patchwork digimon sadly informed her. "I'm still looking into the data on the others that were converted, but so far it looks like it is only the purely digital ones that have that problem. Please tell me we can actually shut this one down, at least for a few more weeks so we can hopefully get caught up."

"It is done for," Janice confirmed strongly, giving Walter a nod. "Bringing another digital life form into being, or using a conversion to be like that digital life form, is one thing. A corruption effect made from code that we had not looked into properly? The only thing happening for at least weeks now is a through check of everyone that was exposed and a reexamination of the actual code that made Analyzers." The jackal pokemon looked at the digimon thoughtfully. "What are your thoughts on this?"

"I'm going over previous exposure and conversion incidents," Tyra noted with a cautious tone. "On one hand, this is a major problem and we need to see how it compares to those. On the other," she trailed off for a moment. "On the other hand, it shows that it is possible to survive such infections without being lost to them entirely. Which means if we understand what is safe and what isn't better we can more easily deal with any new corruption infections that were previously just being removed entirely."


	56. 3-06 Homeworlds

\--- Homeworlds ---

The large diamond shaped stone pad the slightly oversized group of travelers arrived on had clearly been mostly abandoned for quite some time. Moss and other plant life was heavily present, although the group could easily spot the recent attempts to clear the place. It was clearly an ancient device made for the purpose of traveling the world, and in fact the Troubleshooters were able to quickly identify it as having a very similar make to the teleportation network that Team Upload had stolen pieces of.

"Connection confirmed," Gazimon said over the Dark Network Node that they had brought along to see if Janice's aunt could commute across universes to keep her current job. "Although I'm not looking forward to explaining the power bill for doing that daily to someone." The black box was carefully set along one side of the structure, far enough within the edge of the shape to keep it from easily being moved off the device.

"We can get a generator set up to help on that front if it is possible," Lana Fairview replied, the Typhlosion looking quite happy with the news. "Isn't this great, Effects?" she asked her husband.

"Being able to go back and put to use what I can learn here is a lot better than trying to set up a studio for another world," the Zoroark replied happily. Daniel Fairview as it turned out had suffered from a side effect of the species of pokemon it was appropriate for him to become under the effect of the commonly used spell. Rather than temporarily transforming the special effects expert, it had caused him to be entirely converted into one of the illusion making pokemon. "You said that there were natural Zoroark that live fairly close to here right?" he asked his brother in law. "I'm getting a bit tired of hearing jokes about how I still have to do effects work 'the hard way'."

The other Typhlosion present was shaking himself out and looking far happier. With a smirk he ignited the vents along his neck, creating a riple of flames that settled quickly into a mane of orange sparks. "Yeah. Last I knew they actually had a few living in town to learn Fighting moves from local Lucario," Jonathan Grades happily replied.

"We can deal with that later Gazi," Janice said to the digimon while wrapping her aura sensors. The Team Lead was mostly watching over the Troubleshooter team she had brought along with her to this family reunion. "Everyone make it through okay?"

"The air is different here," Tyranomon rumbled sounding a bit happier than was usual for the digimon.

"I am functional," the LAS dully agreed, her body looking far more solid after the trip to an irate Delta 2 that restored some parts of her Porygon nature, the loss of which had been negatively contributing to her physical condition. The medical Administrator had admitted however that more work would be needed to make her count as a pokemon instead of a digimon with types, although no one had been in the mood to ask her to elaborate on how exactly that difference worked at the time.

"There's a town here right?" Quagsire asked Janice's mother cautiously. "I want to get my team distracted, and figuring out an all pokemon town sounds like a solid way to do that."

"It should be fine, just let them know that you are travelers from the human world. At worst they will assume that some of you were human before," Eleanor Grades answered.

"Grant was a human before," Kabutops said regretfully while pointing at the other fossil pokemon, who was entirely distracted by the one confused bird pokemon that had been close enough to see their arrival. "Even if it doesn't look like it at times. Grant, leave them alone! We are on vacation here."

"I was just asking a question," the reincarnation countered, although from how the pokemon took this moment to fly away it was clear it was in fact a problem for them.

"Well look who's come back," an older Lucario said looking directly at Jonathan with a stern expression, a good sized group of the jackal pokemon following behind. Then the pokemon suddenly smiled widely and began walking forward at a faster pace. "My little fire starter and her walking volcano." This brought a chuckle out of the rest of the newly arrived group.

"Dad, mom, everyone," Janice's mother said hugging what was now clearly Janice's grandfather. "It's so good to see all of you again."

"You could have visited a couple more times," the other oldest member of the group said, and Janice was fairly certain this was her grandmother. "And maybe let me see my granddaughter before now?" she asked looking up slightly at Janice and confirming the thought.

"Lucario are shorter than I thought," the Team Lead commented quietly while staring wide eyed at the rather large group of pokemon, all of which were closer in height to her mother than her own size. "I guess I get that part from dad?" she asked more loudly at the slight twitches of ears the first statement produced.

"What's with the funny metal stuff?" one of the younger members of the group asked, before being hushed by another Lucario of her mother's age.

"You have an eye for danger, but clearly aren't a fighter," her grandfather said now looking at her properly. "But I think more formal introductions can wait until we get home. I've already had to reassure the locals that a couple of new faces from Jonathan's world would be a good change of pace, and that most of them would be going right back there after a short visit." He looked over the various non-Lucario pokemon watching the reunion with consideration. "How are you all dealing with being pokemon for now?"

"Actually dad, it turns out we didn't bring anyone who has not been one before," Janice's father said jovially. "And the only ones that are usually human are family."

"Am I family in that count, or is it because I have to use illusions that I don't count as 'usually human'?" his brother in law said jokingly while looking at the group of Fighting type pokemon with some unease.

"You're family," Lana answered her husband, while casting a challenging glance to the various Lucario.

This caused Janice's grandmother to laugh happily. "I see that your sister has your spirit, Jonathan. I'm glad to see that it isn't that rare of a feature on your world."

"I smell those bitter berries that I used to love so much," Grant suddenly cut in shuffling over to one of the middle aged Lucario. "There! Those are the ones! Kabutops, see if you can recognize these."

"They were grown from seeds the local Celebi brought forward from the distant past," the food's owner said sounding amused. "You must have quite the story to know about them."

"Are they sold in town?" Quagsire asked as she walked up to get a closer look. "Preferably along with the knowledge of how to grow them? I have other options for the second one, but I'd rather have good answers right off the bat."

"'Local Celebi'?" the LAS asked, sounding quite a bit more upbeat than she had been. This still presented a dismal tone, but her teammates were able to recognize the breakthrough.

"The time traveler comes to town every couple of weeks with things like them," the Lucario noted to the jellyfish digimon, clearly having just as much an idea on what the LAS was as she did about Grant's form, which is to say no idea at all. "As for the plants, they're being handled by this little flower lizard that the Legendary tricked into going into the Lost Woods."

"The plan was for them to go into town while the family caught up," Janice said nervously. "Um, I don't know how we're related but?"

"Don't worry. Your grandma is my aunt, so it is a bit distant," the Lucario said with a laugh. "She just wanted to make the family look a bit bigger when you got here." Several of the middle aged Jackal pokemon, and most of the more distracted looking younger ones, visibly agreed with the sentiment. "I can take them to see the plant monster on my way home."

\---

Janice was glad that she had avoided explaining the foil so far. Even with it on she could tell that a bunch of well trained Lucario would have made a mess of information for her own untrained aura senses. That would still have been far better on her than anywhere inside the DSS building, but with her lack of understanding of the sense trying to use it would be a recipe for disaster.

The mansion they had arrived at was mostly natural looking. Featuring a number of stone columns and mostly clean white walls, the place looked like the home of a protector family of old. Given all of the other things she had seen on the way there, the Team Lead was now quite sure that this world had been connected to the old teleportation grid back when it was functional.

The rest of the town was a jumbled assortment of structures clearly made by pokemon that had too many friends to help and too few people to hold them back. "How often do they need help to fix the aesthetic features?" she risked asking her grandfather, earning a snort from the Lucario and a groan from her father.

"I replaced that stand just fine," the Typhlosion complained. "And the sign on the market. The Skitty shaped building was an eyesore anyway."

"Not funny dear?" her mother asked her as the various other Lucario laughed at her father.

"My coworker, who is a Grass type himself, had only a Grass type for a pokemon, and doesn't even know any Fire type moves now, burned down a stand so notably last year that he was not allowed anywhere near it to try and replace it," she said keeping her tone bland and serious. "So it is nice to know that my father is at least better off than that."

Metagross laughed at this, although her father seemed to be perfectly aware that it was not a good comparison. "Fairly often," her grandfather actually answered now, looking at her somewhat uncertainly. "But people are more than willing to clean up storm damage and the like."

"Are all of the buildings like this one where you're from?" one of the Lucario slightly younger than her asked.

"Only the ones about as old as this one look just like it, but humans have a thing for making everything about the same for convenience," Janice replied less blandly. "Usually because having the right mix of pokemon and resources to keep a town this unique isn't possible."

"One of us has seen festival sites that were at about the same detail level," Metagross noted. "The time frame was while they had been a lone Beldum, so information is of limited context and quality. Structures here are more robust looking, but appear to have a solid central building coated with a far more fragile display on top. Are the locals typically capable of reading?"

"Reading what exactly?" her grandfather asked uncertainly. "We have a good number of pokemon that given time could puzzle out some of the symbols on the ruins, and a few more that can read footprint runes, but typically there isn't anything we have that needs to be read."

"Historically humans would use the same kind of display, although typically on a smaller scale, in order to show what the purpose of a building was without the need for education on reading," the machine like pokemon replied. "In that context any increase in time spent performing repairs is likely justified."

Janice was about to agree with that idea when a bright flash of aura appeared off to the side behind her. Typically that meant that either her foil had slipped, or more critically that there had been a burst of energy in one of the storage systems and she probably needed to jump to help fix. Turning to see what caused it, the action mostly instinctive at this point, revealed one of her cousins sliding forward in a clear attack.

She more stumbled out of the way than anything, although this let her see that the other Lucario present were far more disoriented with the result of the attack than she expected from its user. It also meant she could see her attacker sliding a bit badly and proceeding to ram into her father instead, producing a slight grunt from the Typhlosion, but no notable damage.

"Ha," her grandmother laughed at the fumbling form of her grandson. "We have been telling you that trick won't work forever. Good to see you can handle a bright flash, granddaughter."

"Honestly that was mostly the foil," Janice admitted steadying herself, and then moving to fix said metal back into covering her sensors more fully. "I work around stuff that's honestly brighter than that, and I'm not trained in using these." She flicked one of the sensors in embarrassed explanation. "So trying to blind myself from aura in general is better than being distracted all of the time."

"You have an aura blindfold?" her grandmother asked. Instead of the expected tone of annoyance or anger, this was asked with a curious excitement. "That metal you're wearing can block aura?" At Janice's cautious nod the old Lucario turned to her husband. "I told you we should have tried to go and visit them," she said in the tone of a longstanding argument.

"And I will admit that it sounds like you are correct," Janice's grandfather said with a sigh. "Do you have more that we can try, to see the effect?"

The Team Lead recovered another four pieces of the foil from her bag with some unease, a bit shaken by the unexpected positive response. "A couple of replacement sets in case of tears in the one I'm using," she admitted, cautiously handing the set of sheets over.

Her grandmother was the one to take them, and then wordless ask for help with getting the foil on properly. "Oh, oh wow that's almost better than a normal blindfold," was the reaction to having them on entirely. "You can still see some aura through this?" the grandmother jackal asked thoughtfully.

"Just a bit. Mostly just emotions and really bright stuff like that flash," Janice replied a bit confused by the reaction.

"We might want to test you on that, because if you can make out anything with this on then you might be oversensitive," her grandmother responded, then began to turn her head side to side to see the effects more thoroughly. "Although there seems to be some gaps here." The sensors then lifted as she closed her eyes. "Yes, this is exactly what I've been looking for." She then carefully removed the metal foil and passed it to her husband.

"Ah. If this is anywhere close to being something other than a Lucario I can see why it would be a distraction," he said after wearing them for a moment. "Would it be possible to get more of this material? Your grandmother has long wanted to be able to teach fighting aura blinded in addition to working with the other senses shuttered off."

"I have some notes on the various methods available," Janice replied looking over at Metagross. "There were a number of options I located or developed for the problem, but decided not to use. If we are able to relay messages to Gazimon we might be able to get that information here now."

\---

"I have to admit, even if she is a Lucario she looks like her father," their guide said walking through the town. The place was about the same size as the town that DSS sat just outside of, but from how proudly she had spoken about its scale that was not a typical size.

"We've just met him," Kabutops said lightly. "Janice is a bit harsh, but honestly is one of the most stable influences our group has, Quagsire being another."

"You probably are used to it, but for me being a leader is a chore I did not ever expect to have," the amphibian commented dryly.

"Not much of a leader myself, although if humans are typically in charge in your world I can guess why Eleanor took charge and Jonathan mostly followed along," the Lucario said looking down a side street. "There we go, the place with the red petals."

Tyranomon had been easily following them up until this point, but on seeing the red petals laid like armor over the light green dome-shaped building he noticeably stopped in confusion. "A strange shape," he noted aloud sounding unsure, then took a moment to look at the other buildings and how they resembled the forms of their owners.

The team moved down the new street to the display shelf along the front of the building. "Flora, I have some visitors looking to grow some berries," the Lucario called out.

None of the pokemon present saw anything noteworthy about the unknown monster that emerged from deeper within the building. She had a bulb like rounded body that was a very light green that rapidly grew darker for her tangled root clusters of legs and the stem like shoulders of her body. A short green somewhat reptilian tail extended from the back of her body with small spikes along its length and a solid tapering shape setting it apart from her legs. Her arms were two purple flowers which faded to near white close to her shoulders. Her light green head was ringed by bright red petals, although the top four of these extended over her head like a helmet.

"A Tyranomon?" she proceeded to ask as she caught sight of the group, nearly dropping the small basket she was carrying as she spotted the dinosaur digimon. "How did you get here?"

"You are a Floramon," the red scaled reptile noted wide eyed. "You are a digimon."

"Oh! You're one of her kind?" the Lucario asked happily. "You wouldn't happen to know how to get her home would you? Celebi isn't helping with that, and she's kind of stuck."

"He's stuck too," Quagsire told her while the two digimon processed each other's presence. "I think you just got his hopes up for a moment actually."

"Feeling is sort of mutual," Floramon complained. "Although given how bad things had gotten after Etemon got taken down I'm not sure if going back is a good idea."

This statement gave Tyranomon a bit of a pause. "How long have you been living here?" the other digimon asked looking over the well worn home behind her, clearly inhabited for longer than he had been revived.

"A few years now," the plant monster said casually. "It's been really strange to be in a place that is this peaceful, but where everyone gets in fights all the time."

"I still say you'd do alright with your pollen moves," the Lucario joked, then noticed the confused expressions on the faces of the Troubleshooters. "Is something wrong?"

"A Celebi is involved," Dugtrio contributed to both his team and the Fighting/Steel type. "Etemon either hadn't been taken down when Tyranomon ended up in our world, or was defeated while that happened."

"Wait, you were one of Etemon's Tyranomon?" Floramon asked sympathetically. "Wow, you were really lucky to have survived that. Last I'd heard they lost one of the Digidestined during that one."

"I am lucky, but I did not survive it. My current teammates are a part of a group that was able to revive me from the end result of the Dark Network going out of control," the dinosaur digimon sadly informed her.

"Our team in particular is well trained in working with monsters that have been restored to life," Quagsire added calmly. "We're partially here to find something for him to do without needing to fight."

"Was the time traveling Legendary directly involved with your arrival?" the LAS asked in the silence that followed that clarification. Her tone was still somewhat dull, but she had floated closer to the front of the group to ask.

"It is kind of complicated. Myotismon went to the human world to conquer it, and the Digidestined followed his forces back there," the flower lizard sighed as she started to fill the other digimon in on what had changed since his own departure. "Then the other Dark Masters took the chance to start dividing up the digital world for themselves. The Cherrymon duo were the ones that were conquering my home when Celebi found me. I'd been stupid enough to speak out against them while their forces were around, and the playful one ended up chasing me." She shuddered at the memory. "Then suddenly this green bulb monster with tiny wings shows up asking me if I could use some help. He didn't sound much nicer to be honest, but I'd never heard of him and I was desperate."

"We found her in the Lost Woods, one of the local Mystery Dungeons, entirely lost," the Lucario contributed. "Celebi was at the end being a bit smug about getting her away from a bigger threat, so I punched him for dropping her into that kind of place without any battle skills."

"And I have told you all many times that it was only due to the shifting nature of such a place that I could find her to save at all," a voice cut in laughing from behind the group. "Now, here we all are. The strange monster I saved and the people who can get her back home," the Celebi continued grandly, only to frown at the dull looks Quagsire's team gave him. "What?"

"While we are working on a way to get them back home, we do not actually have one," Kabutops said bluntly. "I would think a time traveler that knew we were coming would also know that."

"Hey, I'm just going on..." the Legendary started to reply before trailing off. "I am such a jerk," he then complained as if talking about someone else. "I'm sure I will think that was funny when I'm the one doing it to me, but ugh."

"If you're willing to go into detail I have a teammate that needs a distraction," Quagsire said casually, causing most of her team to pause at the uncharacteristically happy tone of the suggestion. "This is LAS, she's been having a bit of a hard time with some issues that came up with her creation, and I've heard that a lot of Legendary pokemon were created." The digital jellyfish looked over at the forest spirit with a mixture of hope and excitement.

"Ah, yes, I'd of course be happy to answer any questions on that topic," Celebi said, clearly wanting to get away from the apparently valid criticism of his past actions. Looking at the serious face of the Lucario he continued, "Perhaps we can do this over there while you finish catching up with Floramon?"

"That sounds like a great idea," the amphibian agreed gladly, and the LAS quickly moved forward and practically drug the pokemon to the side.

"Uh, is she going to be okay?" their Lucario guide asked. "Because, while he's a good enough guy to get Flora out of the path of a rampaging monster, he's also enough of an asshole to have left her alone in a shifting forest full of other dangerous monsters."

"L.A.S., Legendary Analysis System," Quagsire replied slyly. "'Any questions on that topic' is a lot more serious than he probably thinks."

"She needs something to make her happier, so I hope he can answer a lot of them," Grant commented, his tone a bit upset. "Now, if the introductions are out of the way, can we take a moment to get my berries?"

"Grant," his trainer complained exasperated.

"It has been millions of years since I last had one of these," the Armaldo interrupted strongly.

"Most of which you weren't alive for," she said with a hint of anger at what seemed to be the start of a tantrum.

"Everything I used to eat then that's still around is a person now!" he shouted. "Every last thing that I've craved in this lifetime is either gone so long that there is literally just dust and rock, or is someone brought back from that time with friends and family. I was wild then, with other wild pokemon around just living as animals." The fossil former trainer panted slightly, looking sadly at the shocked faces of everyone else present. "I just want a taste of my past that isn't evil."

"I can understand that," Floramon said sadly. "I wish I had some seeds for a couple of plants I like from back home. Celebi has offered to try and get them, but I can tell he will be tricking someone else to get lost in the Dungeon to do it." She then looked over at her Lucario friend. "Which one is he after?"

"The really bitter tasting ones that I use in that stew recipe that calls for Durin berries," the jackal pokemon replied. "It is kind of strange that ancient berries from the distant past are easier for us to get than those."

"Those things?" the flower digimon asked with a frown. "They grow like weeds and make anything that grows in the same spot taste sour. Honestly most of the ones I have are from weeding the plants out of the rest."

"So they are easy to grow?" Quagsire asked relieved.

"And hopefully cheap?" Dugtrio added, earning a splash of water from his trainer.

"Fairly cheap. I don't stock many of them though," Floramon admitted looking only a hint uneasy about the sudden use of an attack. "I've got six that are ripe, and I'll ask 30 poke a piece."

"I'm going to have to trade for that," the Water/Ground type said rummaging through the team's bag. "I don't suppose a gold nugget is worth anything here?"

"How much gold are we talking about here?" the digimon asked in a tone that said she wasn't sure it would work out. However, the good sized piece of metal that Quagsire retrieved made her nod her head happily. "I can make change for one of those."

"How much are you saying it's worth?" Quagsire asked as she began to haggle. In the end they settled on the Nugget being worth 300 poke, leaving 120 poke in change for the berries. After a bit of discussion another 50 was spent on some of the specific soil she had been growing them in for Shawn and Serperior to try and replicate.

Grant was given only one of the small fruits, which he eagerly ate. "It's even better than I expected," Grant said happily while the Lucario and Floramon looked at him with a bit of horror.

"I take it you don't usually just eat them straight?" Tyranomon asked watching the display with a calm expression. He seemed to have welcomed the chance to think about meeting another digimon.


	57. 3-07 Life Goes On

\--- Life Goes On ---

Janice nervously stood across the small training room from the same cousin that had attacked her the day before, now with both of them wearing the foil over their aura sensors. The strange part was the actually combat trained pokemon, if anything, looked to be the more nervous of the two about facing off against each other. She was quite sure that being the largest Lucario they'd ever seen wasn't enough to produce that reaction.

"Alright, I think this is a sufficient handicap," her grandmother gleefully told the crowd around them. "Janice is familiar with working without aura sight, but is untrained in battle, and Evan is a notable combatant against other Lucario, but is fighting blinded."

Her parents looked amused from where they were standing at the edge of the room. They had insisted that this second day in this world should be spent as much as possible with exploring the local customs. As a result she was now going to have to fight her cousin Evan. She was rather sure his name was short for something, but didn't have any idea what.

"I'll try not to embarrass myself," she allowed at the prospect, which strangely did nothing to improve the mood of her opponent. Janice was quite sure that her family could not possibly be missing that given she could see it so clearly without the benefit of aura.

"I'm ready," Evan said calmly despite his appearance.

The elder Lucario raised a paw in the air at this, and then after a short moment dropped it to indicate the start of the battle. Janice prepared for ranged attacks to start, after all Aura Sphere was the identifying move of her species, and her own lack of ability to make one was in her opinion her largest gap in this fight. Given she had a lot of gaps that wasn't saying a whole lot.

Evan, however, instead of keeping that advantage moved forward to close the distance while forming just such an attack. The Team Lead had to frown as she shifted so she could avoid the blast. He continued a good ways past what she felt was the safe minimum range where it was worth using over Force Palm, and then closer still before launching the sphere.

Janice hopped to the side just enough to avoid it and then decided to push herself forward to send an aura coated palm towards his gut. She was quite surprised to find her attack making contact as he moved slightly wrong to avoid the blow, as if he had thought she was aiming for his head.

The more experienced pokemon clearly took the hit well, and disengaged far enough back to avoid any followup attacks she could manage. Then he seemed to almost reluctantly begin to form another sphere at this greater range.

That was the point that Janice gave up on the fight. He clearly wasn't taking her seriously if the badly aimed attempts were to be believed, and the resulting time to think that the slow rate of fire gave her would be more than enough to attempt to apply Shawn's trainer tips to this fight. Given the Troubleshooter tended to end up in combat himself even before he gained access to true moves, there was a solid chance some of it had been more suited to fighting on your own than if she had learned from a typical trainer.

She moved forward quickly, aura coated paws carefully moving to intercept the orbs of energy as they became more accurate with decreased distance. Which took far too long in her opinion, as she managed to get close enough to sweep a leg similarly coated with the glowing blue energy under the smaller Lucario, knocking him to the floor.

"Enough," her grandmother called out, the older canine's voice a mixture of confused, angry, and concerned. "Evan, what is the meaning of this?"

The young Lucario groaned from the floor, and as he lifted himself up he visibly had to stop himself from pushing the foil off his sensors. "I can't make her out!" he complained sharply. "How do other pokemon even manage without aura?"

"What do you mean you 'can't make me out'?" Janice asked thoughtfully.

"You were moving fast, and far away. How am I supposed to see anything with just my eyes that far away?" he clarified with the same sharp tone.

"You can't see things as far away as she was?" the old Lucario asked astounded. "How long has that been the case?"

The confusion on their grandmother's face, or perhaps in her tone Janice considered, seemed to get through to the younger pokemon that there was something strange about his statement. "Metagross, can you project a vision test?" the Troubleshooter Lead asked her pokemon as her cousin looked over at their shared relative clearly feeling despair.

"Standard test for pokemon vision research is available, along with human normal test," the machine like pokemon noted. "Former is noted to be more applicable to your species and the local reading level." They then projected a screen with a set of small line drawings in various scales against one wall of the room. "Lucario standard is line four at halfway point of the room."

Evan paled at the result. "Line four! I can barely make any of them out," he complained from just a bit farther than halfway across the room. "What even are these squiggles supposed to- oh that's a berry," he continued walking forward, and at a quarter of the way across the room finally being able to identify the largest images.

"That can happen?" an older relative that might have been his mother, but Janice wasn't quite sure, asked horrified. "Please, is there anything that can be done about that?"

"Mom," her opponent complained, confirming her suspicion. "I can just use aura. It's worked so far."

"Over-reliance on one sense, especially one you seem intent on blinding in others, is an issue that I have attempted to counter for far longer than you have been alive, grandson," their grandmother said bluntly. "Now, back to the important part, can anything be done about this issue?"

"Humans typically use glasses, small lenses of clear material that correct for the problems with their wearer's eyes," Janice informed the group, uncertain on how helpful the information would actually be. "I don't know if anyone helps pokemon out with that sort of problem."

"I do," her Zoroark uncle noted proudly. "That is to say I help out pokemon with that problem. Well, actually, they tend to start as humans that can use normal glasses, but the point is that doesn't work for pokemon forms that need to fight." With a very deliberate and clearly untrained motion Daniel Fairview formed a set of black banded goggles. "You need something that stays on with a lot of motion. Getting the correct lenses for a particular pokemon shape is a bit difficult at times, but with the right coloration it can be hidden easily enough." He put the demonstration recreation on, the color blending almost perfectly with his own fur. "I can get him checked out and fitted easily enough, and if we don't need to hide them then the cost for extra pairs will go down dramatically."

"We need to get you in touch with Ruby," Janice's grandfather said at this display. "The talent to know how to hide something like that should not be paired with the lack of skill you displayed making it."

"That's one of several reasons why I'm here now," the Zoroark agreed, Janice just barely able to spot how the illusionary goggles faded away as he said this.

"I think we also should take this chance to see if Janice has a sensitivity to aura," Janice's grandmother suggested. "Perhaps even check both of these for everyone while we're at it?"

\---

Celebi knew that he had taken too long to figure out that the strange digital monster he had let himself get caught in a conversation with was too focused on Legendary pokemon. It had started with simple questions on what exactly he could do, if a bit more detailed than was typical. However, instead of taking the basic responses to those increased details as an end point, she started with strangely appropriate questions about those fine details.

"I'm sorry, but I think we've gotten a bit off track. Didn't you want to focus on how Legendaries are created?" he interrupted at the end of a discussion that had somehow ended up on temporal cloning. "I know it must be interesting to hear all about my abilities, but I don't want to take up too much of your time." Rather than make her realize what she had been doing, this simply caused her to visibly deflate.

"If the original intent of your creation is still possible, but the way you operate in that capacity has been corrupted, is that able to be acceptable?" she asked, the question cutting deeply.

"Did someone tell you what happened to my forest?" the time traveler asked sorrowfully. Once again she surprised him, and started to really worry him, as she very clearly indicated that she had not, meaning that she had her own reasons for that particular question. "They weren't always 'lost' woods. Long ago." He paused as he really considered what he ended up saying next. "Longer than it had been around before this happened actually. Something turned my forest into a Mystery Dungeon, making it so that random items, dangers, and even pokemon would form within an ever twisting maze." The thought that his other part had been like this longer than it had not made him pause again to collect his thoughts. "For Legendary pokemon who are specifically tied to one location, like myself, that location is a part of our bodies. Damage or alterations done to it is also done to us."

"Personality alterations as a side effect of the change?" she asked, still sounding like she wasn't really asking about him.

"Among other issues," he admitted. "I don't even think anyone is around that remembers who I was before. I don't dare go back to that particular time, or any time I visited back then." Then he really looked at the body and spirit of the creature he had been talking with. Her form was stable, but now with the thought in mind he compared that stability to his own. "Does anyone remember-" he started to ask.

"I am the result of a pokemon being formed, and then immediately afterward being corrupted by one of these," she cut him off, the last word spat out as she formed a small dome shaped almost-creature from her tail.

"Ah," he commented uselessly at the thing she had made. "That explains it." He considered it a bit more. "I've had to turn pokemon back into the right species, and in one extreme case figure out just how to deal with one turned into an inanimate object, because of what has happened to me," he explained. "Nothing I've ever heard has helped with that issue."

"I would prefer to discuss another topic," she said at that, and he had to admit that wasn't the best way he could have handled that one. "However, with that information disclosed, I feel I should provide my full designation before you permit me to continue. I am the result of the incarnation of a program known as the Legendary Analysis System, and the creation of one of these by an advanced sensor system."

Celebi now realized that he had truly pissed off that Quagsire, and wasn't getting out of this conversation easily.

\---

"It's actually really weird to live with pokemon," Floramon said as the two digimon reached her field of plants just outside of the town. It was split up into quite a few different sections for a variety of plants, mostly berry bushes. "They are some of the nicest people I've ever met, but I don't know if most of them can go a month without getting into a fight with something."

"That seems to be the case from what I have observed as well," Tyranomon said, then carefully moved to the edge of the tilled soil to sit. The plant digimon had offered to talk with him while she worked. "Although they have been very willing to allow me to not do so if I desired."

The flower monster giggled at that dry statement. "Yeah, although my customers still pester me a bit from time to time. The Lucario that lead the village also did make sure I knew how to fight 'properly' first too," she noted. "Mostly that I knew how to tell when to stop so I didn't seriously hurt someone, because they apparently assume that you will get into fights just because you exist."

"That is the first thing my team had me work on as well, along with a failed attempt to increase my strength with their methods," the digital dinosaur agreed. "It took bringing up the topic for them to realize that not wanting to fight was even something I could possibly want."

"That way they get stronger actually seems to me to be part of why they fight so much," Floramon said thoughtfully as she started to go over the plants for any issues or fully grown results. "They can only get stronger by actually using their abilities, and unlike us they actually get weaker bit by bit if they don't keep using them. It's actually a little scary to think about being like that," she confessed. "To just get worse at something without evolving into a less impressive form."

"I had not considered that," he admitted. "Gazimon, another digimon who is now in the other world, has complained a bit that the current issues are taking time away from his team working on their own combat skills." The other digimon looked at him in confusion at this statement, causing him to realize that he had left part of it out. "He was made partially into a pokemon as a side effect of something, and now even has one of their 'types'."

"That's possible?" Floramon asked intrigued. "I'm guessing there are other side effects to such a thing, but I will admit I would be tempted by the option. Have you ever seen what one of their Grass types can do with plants? I could handle this entire patch all at once with that sort of power."

"The three I've seen gain that sort of power all started enjoying battling more, although admittedly they were all Gazimon originally," Tyranomon cautioned her. "However, at the same time I've seen Serperior raise entire fields of grasping vines in a moment, and I think that those were actual plants he had created rather than just the effect of an attack."

"They can do that, and they seem to understand plants better as well," she confirmed, then looked thoughtfully some of her berry bushes. "Can you toss me one of those baskets? I should have grabbed one right off, but I didn't realize how many of these were this far along."

The massive dinosaur digimon carefully plucked a basket from a small pile set near boxes and other storage containers located under a small covering at the edge of the field. Cautiously he tossed it, and to his relief she was able to easily catch it. "I have not seen anything that I would want to have myself," the larger monster noted. "However, I can see why you might want that one. Do you have issues with Grass types making better plants than you do?"

"Not personally, this area doesn't actually have the best soil and because of that not many of them live in this particular town. Most of our food comes from further downstream, where a bunch of them grow lots of food they sell everywhere," she explained. "I mostly grow smaller batches of specialty stuff that is hard to get from somewhere else. Along with berries for healing damage and status conditions, which are always in high demand."

"Those would have been helpful to have back in our world, and the humans of their world have frighteningly powerful medical abilities," Tyranomon noted.

"I keep some on me all the time just in case I end up back in the digital world," Floramon admitted. "These grow so easily compared to what we had there, and even just a couple of kinds would have given us more of a chance to stop the two Cherrymon from taking us over."

This led to the two silently contemplating that reality while the dinosaur sat on the ground and the flower lizard continued managing her plants. Without any other creatures around both of them were able to just for a moment think that they were back in the digital world.

"We could probably give you the Grass type, if you wanted it," Tyranomon admitted with great reluctance. "It is something we know how to do to digimon, and if you're fine with possibly wanting to battle afterward it could help."

"I don't know," Floramon confessed. "It is peaceful here, and I don't even know if the digital world will ever be free, but a big part of me still wants to go back even after all these years." She checked over another plant, carefully inspecting all of its parts. "Although, I guess I might not mind getting back there with that kind of power."

\---

"Is introducing all this stuff from the human world going to be okay?" Janice asked her father quietly after a very detailed exploration of just how off some of her relatives' ability to see actually was. "The foil, or other stuff I came up with, the glasses, and who knows what else?"

"Our family has been trying to get the transport pad working better for longer than I've known them," the Typhlosion said calmly, while her mother sat off to the side to process how Janice had actually gotten her own oversensitivity from her, and the recommendation by Janice's grandmother that they should both continue wearing the foil, if a thinner layer of it to let some more through to them. "This honestly was just a matter of time to have happen. They do teach pokemon how to speak like humans do in my home world after all."

"We had been planning on using a lot of the things that allow access to that world for just that purpose at some point," her grandfather agreed, apparently having heard the conversation. "However, even with that we simply cannot support anything major. I don't know how easy the trip can be made, but I suspect that it should remain harder and more costly than traveling between towns in either world from the descriptions I've heard."

"It is going to be a slow thing. The two who act for your moving pictures are the only ones that will be going back and forth all the time," her grandmother complained. "I don't think we know enough about your world to do much more than that."

"Three towns on record in the region only have major contact to outside their borders once a year," Metagross noted. "Primarily in the form of young trainers leaving on their League run and thus making the name of the location known. Provided the capacity to assume a human form the location of the transport system could easily be used as a basis for this location's inclusion in that act."

Everyone present had to take a moment to figure out exactly what they were suggesting there, either to decode the wording or to realize they were serious. "You think we can just decide to be a town in the region and get away with it?" Janice asked dryly. "What about officers, or a Pokemon Center?"

"Officers can be invited to this location to discuss the possibility in depth, and none of the three towns in question currently feature a full status Pokemon Center," the machine-like pokemon noted happily.

"They are usually like this, aren't they?" her mother asked about the cheerful chaos inducing suggestion with a sigh.

"Only when they feel the need to speak up," the Team Lead noted. "If it does happen though, the metal foil is probably the easiest of the aura blockers to make for this kind of thing. Fast to put on or take off, easy enough to acquire, and safe to handle when you're done with it. After that would be the clay mixture, but that bakes rather solidly just by body heat alone. With how I tend to change back to human as soon as I can it isn't worth the setup, but if it works for others who are oversensitive." She looked at her mother uncertainly.

"That does look to be my best option," Eleanor Grades confirmed. "I still didn't expect this to be a good explanation for why we prefer being human though."

"It likely isn't just that," Janice's grandfather said certainly. "The lack of clarity that results from getting so much at once is bad, and working to learn to deal with it generally isn't worth it." His tone briefly shifting to long held annoyance. "However, that doesn't mean you can't still feel like being a Lucario is more enjoyable than the prospect of being human again."

"Dad, when did you learn what feeling like a human was like?" Eleanor asked of the strange statement.

"The pad has worked partially for quite some time," the older jackal pokemon confessed, after a moment of looking thoughtful while his wife laughed at him quietly. "However, not everyone who travels from this world to the other stays a pokemon when they do so."

"Are you saying I could have possibly turned human from it, and didn't?" Janice had to ask.

"And that it was possible for me to have stayed a pokemon?" her father added just as upset.

"Yes, and I'm not sure about that second one," her grandfather replied to them respectively, with a somewhat confused look directed at his son in law, before he continued. "I was stuck on your side for a week, and by the time I figured out how to get back I was entirely done with not being able to see aura."

"He has used that excuse every time I have suggested going to your side to visit," her grandmother said conspiratorially. "Now, our fellow Steel type's suggestion gives a much better reason for the two of us to go there and see if we can add our town to your region."

\---

"What are you doing for your team now?" Floramon asked as she started to replant in locations where fully picked berry bushes had rapidly deteriorated and been removed. "It took me some time to figure out I was one of the few people in town who really enjoyed this sort of thing."

"Right now? Telling what few stories I have about the digital world, lifting heavy objects, and sitting around uselessly," Tyranomon complained. "But, all that Etemon had ever used me for was fighting."

"Oh. I didn't think about that," the other digimon replied sadly. "Do you like fighting?" She fidgeted a bit with the Oran berry she was preparing to plant.

"Not particularly. I'm fairly good at it all things considered, but I don't actually enjoy having to do it very much," the dinosaur admitted. "However, there is nothing I know how to do that would be an alternative. I lack technological skills, or the finesse to do simpler things, and I am much too large to do work like yours."

"Hmm. Can you carve?" the flower monster asked taking a long look at his claws. "I know a few locals that do that to keep their claws sharp, although the real good ones tend to not use them in a fight so they don't damage them." She then blinked at what she had just specified. "I might have been around pokemon too long, I'm explaining battle tactics out of nowhere."

"If not for how I'm surrounded by so many experienced leaders I'd consider telling my own knowledge of combat as an option," Tyranomon laughed, but he also carefully inspected his claws at the same time. "That does sound like a possibility for something to take up time, but I mostly want to do something other than exist."

"That takes quite some time to actually pull off," the other digimon said seriously. "It took well over a year for me to even understand how things worked around here enough to have the start of an idea on what I could realistically do, and I've only been seriously running the shop for two now." She finished the process of planting the berry and moved onto the next cleared spot. "It took a good part of that first year for them to figure out that I didn't even like being around fights much, and then explaining why was hard. I think most of them would still want to outright invade the digital world on my behalf after I did tell them everything."

"I have allies that can reach the Ultimate stage writing plans from what my little group of digimon has told them," he agreed. "Although I think they have a better idea on just how dangerous the forces of darkness could become, especially after we defeated Datamon."

"Wait, Datamon was alive? And evil?" Floramon questioned confused. "And there? How did he get there?"

"He was also revived from the remains of the Dark Network," Tyranomon started to explain the events that led to his current state of affairs.

\---

Quagsire had ended up taking her pokemon on a shopping trip around the small town for the entire second day in an attempt to give the two digital members more time with their own issues. Possibly while also untangling a bit more of Grant's apparent problems with remembering a lot more of the past than they had realized.

That was an issue she wanted to get home to handle now that she had a better grasp of just how much he remembered, or perhaps it was better to say how little he didn't. "I think that if we had known how to make buildings like this back then I probably would have lived longer," the fossil former trainer noted for the third time. "Although, thinking on that, I might not have become a fossil if that didn't happen."

"I'm still a bit uneasy about you being able to do that kind of thing. Resurrecting the dead is the sort of thing I'd expect only from Legendary pokemon, like Ho-Oh or Giratina," the Lucario who for some reason had kept being their strange group's guide finally admitted. "I know you are mostly using advanced knowledge to do that sort of thing, but it is still troubling."

"Usually fossil pokemon don't remember very much at all," Kabutops dryly asserted, clearly tired from having dealt with his fellow fossil all day. "And Tyranomon was sort of brought back by a Giratina"

"Sort of brought back, or sort of Giratina?" the jackal pokemon asked unamused.

"The second one," Quagsire cut in. "A creature that might be a Legendary, there is a bit of an argument on that one, that is shaped like a Giratina, and rules slash is a place like the 'Distortion World'."

"I have so many questions about that statement, but I've never before been more certain that I don't want to know the answers," a much more tired looking Celebi said floating forward with a similarly exhausted LAS. "Were you aware that she can ask questions for six straight days? I wasn't when I decided to take us far enough into the past to let her ask everything without causing any problems."

"You travel relative to concepts?" the amphibian trainer asked with what she felt was an appropriate level of horror.

"That's part of why I can't get Floramon home myself," he replied simply. "I can't go to a time period I don't have a reference for, and my forest is now twisted too much for me to really tell when it was connected to her world instead of some other world."

"Data acquired," the digital jellyfish said quite happily. "Do pokeballs function in this world?"

"Yes," Quagsire, Kabutops, and the Lucario all said together while glancing at Dugtrio's ball.

"Then I would like to return to mine," the LAS told her trainer with a nodding bob. Quagsire quickly returned the digimon to the modified device.

"Has someone tried to replace her?" Celebi asked quite seriously. "For whatever they tried making her to do, has there been a replacement made?"

"She managed to talk about that?" Quagsire asked tightly. "I'm surprised. Why do you ask that in particular?" she questioned.

"When my forest, the now Lost Woods, was made into a Mystery Dungeon, my creators made some attempts to restore it to normal," he replied with false calm. "Then, when it became clear that it would not be possible without destroying... the forest, they decided to just leave it like that and make another Celebi and give her a nearby forest instead."

"Hate to say it," the amphibian replied slowly after processing that response. "But LAS has it a bit worse. Imagine if instead of doing that, your creators tried to make another Mystery Dungeon, but got what you were supposed to be instead." She then held up a hand before he could respond. "No, wait. They didn't just want to have her, they wanted a version of her more willing to use the more dangerous parts of what was corrupted about her."

"Ah. That does explain a lot," he responded sadly. "I'm not sure how much help a time traveler tied down to an eldritch forest will be, but if she needs anything let me know."

Contemplation of this offer was then interrupted by the arrival of Janice's family, and in particular her Zoroark uncle, as they turned onto the dirt street. "It should be right over here," their Lucario leader's mother noted, the older jackal pokemon pointing at a building that Quagsire had written off as too troublesome to deal with. Mostly because it didn't have shadows that quite matched up with the structure itself. "I'm not sure we can help with introducing you, given how things..." she trailed off as she spotted the disbelief present in the special effects expert's expression.

"They quite obviously find people worth talking to about this topic by testing them on how many things are wrong with those illusions!" Daniel Fairview all but shouted at the structure, earning a giggle from the probaby-not-a-Lopunny nearby who had clearly been waiting for someone to comment. They looked a lot less amused as the former human began going into a bit too much detail about what specifically was being done wrong.

"Um, wait," the currently rabbit looking pokemon said after a particularly harsh one. "Uh, that wasn't intentional," she said at a note on some of the shadows being easily spotted. "How would you even do that?" she finally asked loudly enough to attract his attention, breaking her illusion at the same time.

"Huh? How would I? Well for that last one I'd need some time in the shop with some wooden frames, a bit of paint, and a good ten minutes to shape some basic illusions over it to fill in the gaps that leaves," he replied distractedly, to the amusement of the Lucario and Typhlosion next to him.

"Frames and paint?" the other Zoroark asked disbelievingly. "You think you can do better with frames and paint?"

"And some simple illusions to fill in a couple of details," Daniel confirmed. "Did a shot that went all the way around something about that complex once with just that much."

"That was not 'yes I can', that's 'I've done it before'," the local Dark type replied disbelievingly.

"So, busy day?" Quagsire quietly questioned Janice at the edge of the discussion, her team plus the Legendary moving closer to hear better.

"I've been told that I actually have a medical reason to wear this stuff, but otherwise just a nice time with family," the Team Lead said happily. "How about your team? Did this trip work out for you?"

"Honestly? Overall things went well. Found some food for Grant, who apparently remembers everything about his past life. Dugtrio isn't allowed out on their own in towns anymore, don't ask," the amphibian trainer said jokingly. "LAS found a Legendary that actually let her ask all her questions." She nodded at the unhappy form of Celebi. "And Tyranomon is off talking about how to deal with being a digimon in a pokemon world with the local digimon."

"What local digimon?" Janice asked with a dry lack of amusement.


	58. 3-08 Stonescale Trainers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place on the same day as 3-06 Homeworlds.

\--- Stonescale Trainers ---

"So, how are things going, Colin?" Shawn asked the one Stonescale trainer that had not been dropped into a major problem yet. Behind him Gazimon was in the middle of helping with Janice's trip across universes and generally being upset over the increased workload that it seemed to be creating. The Felsic siblings were still looking uneasy after long conversations with their teams about why they were pokemon. A-0 was in charge until the others returned, and Serperior was going to be on call while the mostly human trainer handled the issues that had arrived with the four new faces. "Do you need any help with things, or can I leave you alone again while we try and fix these two?"

"It's been going rather well actually," the mine guard noted happily. "I've just received two more detailed sets of materials to test my Stonescale with, and my team has managed to get them to the point that it is reacting to attacks properly. Which honestly isn't that great as far as battle is concerned, but it is a starting point."

"Ah, good. Glad to know that somebody is having a sane series of events," the snake eyed trainer said with false cheer. "A-0, what problem just came up to ruin this moment?"

"You went asking for good news after I mentioned that the dev team has finished analyzing the malicious code that the cursed kids brought with them," the Porygon-2 responded dryly.

"Given I've got a transfer request to send the two of them into Box 201, I'm guessing the news is worse than it sounds," Gazimon complained before going back to his modified console.

"Uh, wait, what's 201 mean?" Jane asked.

"Our medical Box, primarily for digital world issues but still the most advanced facility in a week's walking distance," Serperior said with a groan. "Why are they in need of that kind of treatment?"

"Delta 2 should be the one to go over it, she's going to be handling the rest of that fallout now," A-0 complained. "Shawn, take them there, and see if she needs your help too."

\---

Albert woke up to the sight of a Porygon floating above his head in the very bland room he had been given inside of the storage system. She proceeded to let out a series of beeps and clicks. "Um, I didn't understand that?" he asked groggy.

"Excellent! I was really worried that you would end up a pokemon, or at least able to understand them," she said in a far too cheery tone for a problem he now knew for a fact was a real and present one. "I have triple checked things, and even Shawn hasn't spent the night in a storage system before. You are the very first human to do so."

"So, how long do I have before that isn't true?" he managed to ask as his new boss floated out of the way so he could properly get up. "Because I have the impression you're working on turning humans into pokemon."

"I can get why you'd think that, but honestly?" Alpha 45 said more than asked. "I have a grand total of one 'human' I would have any reason to make such a thing for, and given how we can't even call him that entirely seriously that is still overstating things. My current personal project is actually just the opposite, turning pokemon into humans."

"That honestly makes a lot of sense," he admitted considering just how many talking pokemon he had met at the lab. "So, if I'm not going to be turned into a pokemon, what will I be doing?"

"Working with my teams on our main development projects," the Administrator told him with a nod. "Right now we're just at the start for two main ones, with technical support for the Acid Armor Adaptation Machine being continued for a while longer. I was planning on starting you off with Metal Claw, and then after you were more familiar with how we work we'd see if you could help on the Forest's Curse project."

"I'll admit, Metal Claw is a move that would be really nice to have as a TM," the trainer said thinking back to his own League run. "But I've never heard of the other one."

"Considering it is unique to a single evolutionary line I wouldn't doubt that. It is a move that adds the Grass type to a target pokemon," she said eagerly. "Working on the human/pokemon conversion project has given me a lot of information about that kind of thing, type alteration is all but required for the average human to be transformed. That, along with a method of causing that exact change that we had to use during the Upload issue, means that I have a really solid starting point to mimic the effects."

"It seems like it would be hard to use that kind of move unless you were a Grass type yourself," Albert noted thoughtfully. "Although, the Ghost type would probably be a more useful one since it is weak to itself."

"Yeah, we kind of had a pokemon that knew the Ghost type equivalent, Trick-Or-Treat, with us during the Upload problem," Alpha 45 nervously admitted. "There are some possible side effects to the move that causes that change, like getting stuck as a Ghost type, that should be avoided. The debate on if the pokemon in question technically died never really got resolved."

Albert simply stared off into space for a moment thinking about that concept while at the same time trying desperately not to think about it. "Dragon is another one that is weak to itself," he said afterwards. "Maybe do something with that? Frozen Flames are known to make pokemon into that type already."

"A solid suggestion, but MechIn Labs are more interested in existing moves than working on all new ones right now," his new boss noted. "How about I let you finish waking up, and maybe get some breakfast, before we introduce you to the others?"

\---

Shawn and the cursed trainers arrived in the medical Box to find Charlie 13's massive serpentine form floating inside, right next to the Mismagius from the day before who looked quite embarrassed. Delta 2 was clearly angry with both of the Ghosts, and TyranoGazimon was further off with a pokemon that notably had a polygonal stump where one of their limbs had been before. "I don't need to tell you how much I don't like being able to meet one of my siblings face to face, do I brother?" the Chansey shaped Porygon-2 was asking as they entered.

"That's Giratina," Jane suddenly said, claw extended in horror. "That's one of the creators of the universe."

"He's a Porygon that decided to look like Giratina," Shawn corrected the trainer while giving her a confused look. "Although I'm curious where you heard about that particular Legendary? We had to work a bit to find information that wasn't from Ghost types."

"Mom ran into someone who had met him," Jim said slightly faintly. "Apparently there was some big problem with a team going for the other creators. They were passing along the story because he'd gotten forgotten, and they wanted to get his existence more widely known."

Another pokemon then walked out from a hallway at the sound of voices. The Magmar had a curious look on his face as he inspected the pokemon and Troubleshooter, clearly expecting to see someone else and somewhat upset to see a Charmeleon. "Magmar!" Jane said with clear joy at his appearance. She then scrambled over to the suddenly confused pokemon to look him over better. "How's your leg doing?"

"Jane?" the pokemon asked slowly, then he turned to look at Shawn critically. "That's actually her isn't it?" he sighed.

"It is more my fault than Shawn's," Charlie 13 noted with a rumble of annoyance. "She cursed them because of that corruption issue that your ball had," he continued pointing at the other Ghost.

"For me it kind of is my fault. He was tired and still tried to stop us, kinda," the Charmeleon admitted while her brother looked over the two Fire types with growing concern. "But seriously, they aren't making the injury worse here, are they?"

"'Injury'?" the pokemon asked with caution. "What injury are you talking about?"

The reptile pokemon stopped moving at this statement, and her tail flame seemed to burn a touch hotter as well. "I mean that my father said you had gotten badly hurt, and mom had found a place that would still be able to give you something to do. He implied that the donation could be undone if you got better," she hissed at his genuine confusion. "Mom was a bit more evasive, but seemed to agree with that."

"Your father told me that you didn't have the space on the team anymore, and that they couldn't keep me there any longer," Magmar said, his own body also heating up a bit.

"We can put it on the list of actual crimes your father appears to have committed," Delta 2 interrupted the reunion. "There is enough here that we quite honestly have to call him a member of Team Plasma, and you haven't even heard the worst of it yet."

"He gave away one of my sister's pokemon without her permission," Jim noted unhappily. "How much worse can it get?" the Greninja asked with a roll of his eyes.

"A risk of crippling every pokemon you've encountered, and even getting you permanently stuck as pokemon," the Administrator harshly replied. This made Shawn and the two Ghost pokemon look at her sharply.

"How exactly did he manage to pull that off?" the Troubleshooter asked with an edge to his voice, red eyes focusing on the polygonal Chansey.

"Whoever made the second program we pulled off their stuff had two different facts exactly backwards: the way pokeballs work, and why they don't catch humans," Delta 2 complained. "Their type scanning devices had the full installation files for the stuff on them, including a readme detailing the intended operation. Which was so wrong about those things that the dev team double checked what it actually did to make sure it wasn't a trick." A plain text document appeared on a screen behind the Porygon-2. "They were under the mistaken idea that a pokeball analyzes the energy signature of the target pokemon in order to lock onto them. As a result they decided to make infected devices emit a signal that disrupts the energy of a pokemon to make it harder to track."

"It makes the energy of pokemon around it looser in order to try and make it harder for pokeballs to work on them?" Shawn asked incredulously. "That sounds like it would make it easier instead of harder."

"It does, and you missed part of it. It makes everything's energy looser, which means these two were at real risk of catching themselves if they used high end pokeballs," the Administrator said to the horror of the Felsic siblings. "It also isn't safe to have your energy disrupted like that. You can more easily be injured and can more easily overdo things with regards to using your own energy." She looked seriously at Jane, carefully inspecting how the current Charmeleon was moving and acting. "With these two having registered as expressing a type as much as they do I'm not surprised that she's so easily gone inhuman."

"'Gone inhuman'?" the Fire type asked nervously, her tail lashing behind her. "I'm, I'm not that bad am I?"

"You've been spitting flames from the start, sis," her brother dryly replied. "But, I'm only mostly okay with this," he noted to the Porygon with a finger pointed awkwardly at his tongue. "Wouldn't we both be effected the same way by that sort of thing?"

"It can depend on a lot of things actually, and she's also got a head start on you as well," Delta 2 informed him as she walked up with a few scanning devices following her. "The thing is if it was a bad enough disruption you might have been a bit too close to already being a pokemon when you were transformed." Mismagius paled at this statement and rushed over to the pair. "So, curse maker, what do you think with that new information?" the Administrator harshly questioned.

"It explains really well why I had such a hard time holding this one back," the haunted fabric said faintly. "Their father has been doing this to more than just the two of them. Good news is I've already compensated for it for the most part."

"And the bad news, Mismagius?" Charlie 13 asked threading through the air to get a better look himself.

"That there is a bit more of a risk of it lasting longer than I intended than I had thought there was," she said as Jane growled at how close she had gotten to her. "Uh, this is a bit awkward to ask, but you didn't have any sorts of connections to Chars did you? Relatives, teammates, important events?"

"I had a chance to get a Charmander for a starter," Jane replied quietly, while her brother simply looked away from them.

Mismagius looked between the Charmeleon and the Magmar, and then sighed heavily. "You probably aren't going to get your father back to normal," the Ghost said. "That's too much negative impact he's done with this issue. You will probably turn back just fine though."

"You are sure about that?" Delta 2 asked with a strong glare. Jane took a moment to consider her current body a bit more carefully in response to the serious idea that she might be stuck in the form.

"That she can possibly get back to normal, yes. That it is more likely than 'probably' not so much," Mismagius admitted. "I'd ask if he had anything to do with the Greninja line," The frog pokemon shook his head. "but I'm fairly sure that I can tell she has a bit bigger connection than he does."

"Do your scans show anything, Delta 2?" Shawn asked critically. "Because while I'm willing to trust a mage I don't personally know about her own spell, I also know you've got experience with people turning into pokemon."

"She's just as much a Charmeleon as she was yesterday when I reviewed the data you grabbed on the Pokedex. Which is a bit worrying considering that's a bit more pokemon than her brother is right now," the Administrator noted unhappily. "Not as close to evolving as she acts though," she continued absentmindedly.

"I'm a Charmeleon," Jane commented on that with an arrogant huff. "We know we're just about to get our wings," she continued sounding like she was quoting someone.

"Just so you know, that's from a movie she really..." her brother started to clarify at their confused looks, before trailing off with a disturbed look on his face. "Uh, some pokemon actresses have to be actual pokemon, right? Because her shot at a Charmander was a lot weirder otherwise."

\---

Albert made his way to the basic looking cafeteria area soon after he finished getting ready for his day, nodding uncertainly at the various pokemon he passed along the way. There he was able to eat a very basic and rather blocky meal that he was not entirely sure he should have tried, but the Zoroark coated in a layer of black smoke seemed to find his reaction to the taste amusing.

"Are you ready to get started then?" the pokemon suddenly asked as the trainer was getting ready to find the Box's Administrator.

"Uh, you are actually talking right? Because the boss was saying that understanding pokemon would be a problem, and I'm not entirely sure about breakfast right now," Albert cautiously noted, receiving only a harsh laugh in response.

"I still cannot believe that she was a Porygon before," another voice said to someone from the doorway. It was revealed to be from a blue shaded dome shaped polygonal creature, followed by two others clearly of the same species. "It explains why she's so much more stable than us, but still that's a horrible thing to learn."

"Analyzer use should be halted entirely," a golden version of the same creature said harshly, only partially sounding like an actual response to the other statement. "Our very survival was already questionable, but this is too far."

"Now be fair Be, we are only really using them as target practice," a third purple one said confusingly. "I don't think we need to worry about things that we only make to break."

"Halting our main use isn't going to help anyone," the blue one reluctantly agreed. "Although I hope we can disable more of their functions."

"I really don't see why everyone is always surprised that three former police listening devices spend so much time stealing secured information," the Zoroark complained with a shake of his head. "What is going on with you three now?"

"The LAS is actually a corrupted Porygon," the golden one complained. "Not just a smart corrupted like we are." She then seemed to finally notice Albert's presence. "Oh, who is this?"

"I believe this is our new human team member," the Dark type noted with amusement, waving his arm in a motion to the trainer that clearly was asking him to introduce himself.

"Albert, seven Badge trainer," the lone human responded with a nod. "Just starting with Mechanical Insight Labs now."

"I'm De," the blue dome creature said. "This is my sister, Be, and my brother, Al." They said pointing at the gold and purple ones respectively. "We are digital life forms that mainly work as living sensor arrays, while also producing some fairly standardized targets for testing out moves on."

"Digital life forms? Like the Stonescales?" he asked with a glance at his newest pokemon's ball.

"It does kind of explain why we were the ones who messed up the minds of the Stonescales we tried to revive," Al noted quietly at this statement.

"The Stonescale units are a bit more stable than we started, and a bit less than we are now," De said more loudly, clearly trying to cover their brother's statement. "Although if they are giving them out already then there has been a breakthrough we don't know about."

"I'm hoping to have yours help a bit with Metal Claw actually," Alpha 45 said floating inside. "I see you found Zoroark and the RAS units. I'm glad, because those four will be working with you most of the time. Now let's have a proper tour of the whole facility."

\---

"Okay, I have finished checking and confirmed that the actress in question is in fact a pokemon by birth," Delta 2 said after a rapid information check prompted by Mismagius having a panic attack over the possibly that it was not the case.

"That's something of a relief," Jane started to say, before turning to the Administrator with a harsh look. "Wait, why did you say it like that? 'A pokemon by birth' also describes that Janice lady doesn't it?"

"So, some of their human actors and actresses are actually pokemon turned human," the Chansey shaped pokemon said throwing her arms in the air. "Because of course they are going both ways."

"Please tell me she doesn't do that very much," Mismagius groaned. "I need to check the entire family now, because they apparently are repeat offenders on this topic."

"Just dad actually," Jim said looking amused by the result. "I was too busy being mad that it wasn't my favorite movie star pokemon showing up because of a letter, and mom was honestly more angry about how he acted than the Charizard and her handler." He paused to consider his statement. "Although now that we know a bit more about this whole thing I'm not sure 'handler' was the right term."

"Ugh," the Ghost pokemon groaned even louder. "I still need the whole family at this point to actually figure out if this has been entirely messed up."

"Right, calling your house," Delta 2 said bluntly at the clarification, and then immediately shifted the screen behind her to a phone display. "Ms. Felsic?" she asked of the Venusaur that appeared on it after a moment.

"Yes? Oh, this is about the curse isn't it?" the Grass/Poison pokemon roughly said having spotted Mismagius. "I've unfortunately found my husband," she continued, one of her vines tapping a pokeball. "It turns out that he actually just shoved himself into a pokeball for some inexplicable reason."

"Please not that," the Administrator complained while dropping her head. "Please, tell me he wasn't dumb enough to stuff himself into a tainted pokeball." As she moved the two Fire types in the room became more clearly visible to the camera for the phone.

"Is that Magmar? What is he doing there?" the Venusaur asked confused, but clearly identifying the pokemon. "My idiot husband said that you ran off, and had me give that stupid line about you getting donated to cover for it until we found you."

"Nope, he actually donated me," the Fire type sighed. "Didn't break my leg, didn't run away, and apparently wasn't unwanted."

There was a moment of silence as everyone processed the new information. "I don't suppose you could do anything with a useless Nidoran?" the mother toad said darkly, tossing the ball in the air a couple of times. "I'm sure there are ways of keeping him from changing back into a human."

\---

Colin Vein set another group of rocks on the floor in front of his Stonescale. The pokemon quickly checked over the six stones, before shuffling them around into three piles. They had spent quite a bit of time working on this skill over the past couple of days, and the DSS personnel seemed more than willing to give him some space in an out of the way office to do the work.

The mine guard nodded at the result, double checking the intended status of each of the rocks in the pocket guides that had come with them. The farthest pile had the three stones that should have been empty of any typically useful materials. Then there was one pile with the two evolutionary stone dust speckled rocks mostly used for identifying larger deposits, and the lone iron ore bearing rock.

"Very good," he told the pokemon, and tossed a small hard pellet of food to it. The reptile snatched this quickly and gladly as he collected the stones again.

He then selected eight more stones from the box of samples he had requested, along with the description paper that went along with them. Cautiously he made sure that it took more than a glance to match between the paper and the stones and set them out again. He was fairly sure that the pokemon could at least match symbols, if not outright possessing the ability to read, so that was proving a needed precaution.

The Stonescale quickly set to work on the new set, visibly pausing at one stone, and then to Colin's minor dismay carefully splitting it in two. Checking the documentation he noted that it was not a piece intended to have multiple minerals, and with that in mind he decided to see what it had found instead of just letting it know he had not wanted it to alter any of the items.

Overall, he could understand why the others would have issues with training the creatures, but found himself unsure why they all seemed so upset with what had happened so far. It didn't seem all that bad to him.


	59. 3-09 Plasma Burns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place on the same day as 3-07 Life Goes On.

\--- Plasma Burns ---

The arrival of a large clearly upset Venusaur to the building the next day revealed to the team that the rest of the DSS staff had apparently decided that pokemon showing up without humans meant it was a Box Troubleshooter Problem. Given the ones that had arrived so far that was actually a solid assumption, and their biggest problem was that it might be a common enough issue that they'd end up with some signs posted about it.

"Hello Mrs Felsic," Shawn greeted the flower-toad as she arrived at the Troubleshooter Lab. "Sorry about this whole issue."

"I don't see how it is more your fault than mine," the older pokemon noted unhappily, only to then notice the unusual color and shape of the trainer's eyes. "Is that an illusion to make me feel better, or did he cause you problems too?" she asked lifting a pokeball with a vine.

"I take it that's the idiot?" Gazimon asked harshly, having tied himself up with making sure everything was going well for Janice's group in the other world. So far this had only been sending over old files and looking things up, but with all the issues on their own side he was mostly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Yes, this is unfortunately my idiot," the Grass/Poison type agreed readily. "I'm hoping to trade him for something better, like a newly hatched Magikarp."

The rabbit digimon blinked slowly at that harsh agreement. "Shawn, I'm still not up to date on all the things people from your world say, how bad is 'a newly hatched Magikarp'?" he asked his trainer tiredly.

"Magikarp don't learn any useful moves at all on their own. For a while there was some debate on if they were proper pokemon as a result of that," the red eyed trainer informed him while A-0 floated closer to carefully inspect the pokeball.

"Do you have any other electronics on you?" the Porygon-2 asked with annoyance. "Because I can now confirm that the stupid 'anti-catching' software is infesting this particular device, and I want to make sure we clean everything before we take you to my sister to see how fixed this situation can get."

"I still cannot believe him," she complained. "But at the same time plenty of people have warned me," she continued with a sigh. "Not like we weren't outright told that he'd try and get rid of the kids' Starters, although I don't think those movie studio people knew it would be literally that bad."

"Magmar was her starter?" Shawn and Serperior asked together.

\---

"Why did you believe dad?" Jane asked Magmar while they waited for her parents to arrive.

"You sent me home," her Starter pokemon said sharply. Now that he'd had time to process the madness of their situation he apparently had decided to use the ability to speak with her to be blunt.

"I," she started before pausing to look around the room. It was just Delta 2, Mismagius, and the lizard-rabbit present so far along with her and her brother. "It wasn't working out with you in battles, and I can't manage that many pokemon while keeping tabs on Jim," she continued evasively. "I thought mom could keep you in good enough condition while I worked out how to use you. I didn't even imagine dad would do this kind of thing." She looked at the spitfire pokemon sadly. "You really think I'd do this?"

"Jane, we all know that you'd trade any of us for a Char," he admitted sorrowfully, with the Charmeleon flinching heavily as a result of the statement. "I lost a lot of hope when I heard your voice and then spotted that tail." Said tail was entirely still for a moment, before being brought in front of the trainer so she could stare at the flames. "Um, I just mean that you are still touchy about that," he tried to walk his statements back at her shaken expression.

"I'm worried that you're right about that," she said before he could get a more solid response out. "That I would replace any of us to get a Char, including myself." Her claws clenched for a moment, and the flame burned hotter for a brief burst. "That I want one so much I'd give up being human to have one."

Magmar responded to this admission with total disbelief. "They're going to get you back to normal, Jane," he attempted to reassure her. "I have no doubt that the mad snake trainer can somehow get you human again."

"It's going to be a question, Magmar. They are going to ask me if I want to turn back," she quietly said, clearly afraid of the idea. "They are going to ask if I want to be human again and I don't know."

"Okay, not going to keep pretending I can't hear you two," Delta 2 said loudly at the pair. "Yes, we are planning on asking first before trying anything to make you into a human if you are stuck, but that is if you are stuck. We do not know that you are yet, so try not to worry too much about that right now." She then looked over at Magmar specifically. "Also, you should both be aware that despite 'common knowledge', Starters do not in fact always stay on their trainer's teams. I have seen plenty of Starter pokemon end up here, both stored because their trainers did not have a current use for them, and genuine cases of donating a Starter pokemon. That she asked about your supposed injury says a lot to me about what she really thought about it."

"But I might have traded him for a Charmander," Jane attempted to defend her pokemon, although despite this she sounded unhappy with the idea.

"There is a world of difference between being willing to trade a pokemon, and wanting to stay one sis," Jim said hopping over. "I don't use Cloyster as much as I used to either. That doesn't mean he isn't important to me, just that what I need isn't lining up with what he can do." He then unhappily looked at Magmar. "Also, she isn't entirely lying about trying to work out how she could keep using you. She just thinks too much like the lizard she currently is to figure you out."

Both of the Fire types looked uneasy about these arguments. They were as a result very glad to see the sudden appearance of Shawn, Serperior, and the two trainers' Venusaur mother. "Hmm, this place isn't in the same world?" the toad pokemon asked tossing a pokeball at the Chansey shaped Administrator. "Here he is."

"I'm not sure you're taking this properly," Mismagius complained. "Being that mad at him, in that way? That is not helping things from my side of things." She floated over to the ball and looked at it with crossed eyes. "Uh, willingly caught does not help things either. I really hate to say this, but I need the jerk out of there to check him properly."

With some annoyance Delta 2 tapped the button on the pokeball and let out a small purple rodent-like monster covered in spikes and spines. "Freedom! I have finally escaped the tyrannical sphere, and now will be free from the harsh bindings humans place on pokemon," he immediately started off a long detailed rant.

"Oh no, not this already," his daughter sighed, as he continued with ever more complaints about humanity and goals for helping pokemon escape from their rule.

"Somehow saying 'I' and 'we' instead of 'pokemon' doesn't make it any less annoying," her brother agreed, and it appeared that all of the family was familiar with the content of the rant.

"Please, by Giratina's blackest rage, tell me that he is not serious about what he is saying right now," Mismagius said with some despair, as the tiny Poison type moved looked around the room while continuing to curse the evils of humanity and declare pokemon superior to everything else. "Please?"

"Ha! I see that we are all free from any human oppressors here!" the Nidoran declared happily, despite having looked right at Shawn for a moment.

The red eyed trainer blinked slowly at this statement, and then proceeded to form a series of vines to bind the small pokemon tightly to the ground, taking special care to muzzle him. "Right, apparently I'm pokemon enough for random madmons to know it on sight," he dryly said, while Serperior sighed at the harsh reaction. "So, can we get the checkup out of the way, and then shove him back in?"

"No, seriously, that rant is the worst possible thing he could have said," the Ghost type emphasized. "Literally any other reaction would have been better." She floated over to look the Poison type over with an upset expression. "Yeah, he's basically burned the humanity out of himself with everything that's happened. I'd go so far as to say he will actively resist any magical attempts to make him human again rather strongly."

Delta 2 sighed at that result. "That changes things for the legal side of things a bit. I've been in contact with the police on what they wanted in this case, and the answer is basically that they don't know what to do about a talking pokemon criminal," she told the group. "I was told that he'd likely end up in standard pokemon rehabilitation, like any criminal team's pokemon."

Mismagius floated between the four members of Felsic family for a bit while they thought over that news, most of them looking fairly happy with the result, while the father appeared to be trying to continue ranting. "Ok, the Venusaur and Greninja are fine. No issues that I can see with the curse. Miss Charmeleon on the other hand is still a bit iffy," she told the group with a frown. "I think I'm missing something here. If it was because of her father's actions, then it should have hit all of them."

\---

Albert's second day of work at his new job was going a bit differently than expected. "We are doing what?" Alpha 45 asked of the scientist on the floating monitor.

The woman from Mechanical Insight Labs had the good grace to be embarrassed about the situation. "I'm really sorry about the misunderstanding," she said sadly. "But it is simply the case that we need a wider variety before most places will consider stocking Adaptation Machines. Our own catalog already has them, along with a couple of specialty stores that were already interested in Acid Armor specifically, but three different models would be a solid starting point before we could get into the wider market."

"I see," the Administrator noted sadly. "I can shift things around to have them be AMs instead easily enough. We will just need to solidify the guidelines on how much of a change they are allowed to produce in the user."

"Uh, change in the user?" the newly recruited trainer asked.

"Long term changes as a result of how you learn the move, we'll go over it in detail later," the Porygon-2 replied.

"We do have some basic information on what the League uses for guidelines with move tutoring that runs into that problem," the scientist noted with a nod. "I'll send that information over as a starting point, and let you get stared on the changes. Hope you have a good day."

"You too," Alpha 45 said as the connection cut. "Ugh, of course that's why they went with this move."

"Is it hard for you to make one of these things for it?" Albert asked as they started moving over to the Metal Claw testing facility.

"No, exactly the opposite actually," she replied clearly annoyed. "I can probably make one fully ready to go by the end of the week for Metal Claw, because it had turned out that the main thing that had stopped earlier efforts to make one was that it turned the claws of anyone that used those older prototypes into metal as a side effect. I can revive those and get the information packet on care instructions together in no time."

"Oh, so this is something you were trying to fix and now don't have to," he responded sympathetically. "At least there is still the other one, right?"

"Forest's Curse also gets a lot easier to adapt if I can have some degree of modification tied into it," Alpha 45 complained. "Depending on those guidelines it might even be possible to outright alter the pokemon's type while using it." She then clearly took a moment to check quickly. "Ugh, a temporary change to pokemon's type as a result of using the move is allowed, but a permanent change is classified as an evolution by these guidelines. So we will still have some work to do, but it still removes a lot of the tricky bits."

They contemplated that quietly for the rest of the way to the structure. Once inside they were able to spot a variety of claw-possessing pokemon all looking over another variety of devices and testing areas. "Well, it looks like we are pretty much done if they decide to try for an Adaptation Machine instead," a Charizard close to the door joked, their voice strangely doubled by the Administrator's automatic translation for the trainer's benefit. "All we'd need at this point is to make the documentation." They flashed atypically metallic claws at them as well.

"Great, get to work on that. Turns out they want one of those instead," the Porygon-2 complained. "Actually, here's Albert. Go over what our options are with him, get an idea of what is better or worse for a trainer in the field. That's why he's here after all. I have to tell the other group that we're only working on AMs for a while."

\---

Shinespark was panicked at this point. The former actress had only learned from her coworkers the day before that someone else had ended up stuck for an extra day due to using a TM after being changed by their most used spell. This was mostly expected, the person she had agreed to send the spellwork to was a TM crafter, so that was a logical result. However, she had overlooked the possibilites of just who might end up transformed.

As a result the retired movie star was landing outside of a storage facility to try and make sure an old regret didn't end with someone stuck as a human for their father's ideals. The building itself didn't look too strange, but there was an odd sense of Legendary power around it, particularly in a small patch of forest that also felt a bit polluted. Walking up to the door she considered how she was going to explain herself to the staff in order to get to the right place, and worried that she should have called ahead of time instead of leaving as soon as possible.

Entering she looked at the receptionist, who quickly scanned to see if she had a trainer. "Box Troubleshooter Lab is on the second floor, third door from the elevator to the left," he said to her dryly.

"Um, I'm here about the situation with Jane Felsic?" the pokemon asked, surprised with the reaction, and even more so when he simply nodded as if talking pokemon were just commonly found.

"Yep, Box Troubleshooter Lab, second floor, third door from the elevator to the left. I think her parents just got here, but I only saw the mother," he confirmed as if this was a normal situation. "Her leaves were drooping a bit, so I hope it is some good news."

That, did not make any sense to the Fire/Flying pokemon, but he didn't sound like he really knew what the situation was, so she simply walked over to the noted elevator and waited for it to arrive. Another worker walked up beside her, and simply stood there again as if random pokemon showing up on their own was normal. They both entered the elevator quietly, and before Shinespark could even attempt it the other worker nodded at her and pressed the second floor button along with the fifth for themselves.

Entirely confused the pokemon mage walked nervously to the stated location, turning in to see only pokemon. A Porygon and some unknown purple rabbit pokemon, both clearly working at computer systems. "I suddenly have a better idea how that guy from Kanto felt when he joined us while we were in the middle of that all pokemon film," she commented aloud at the realization that it must indeed be the case here as well that talking pokemon were in fact just a normal thing.

"Talking Charizard from the film studio?" the rabbit asked darkly. "A-0, warn your sister for me, I'll get transport setup."

"Transport?" she asked nervously looking around the room full of high tech equipment that looked right out of one of the science fiction pictures she helped make. A bit too much like such a set for her comfort.

"You are here about Jane's situation, correct?" the digital pokemon asked trying not to sound annoyed. She nervously nodded at that question. "Alright, I'll try and explain the way things have gotten worse and where they all are right now."

\---

The sudden arrival of the Starshine Pictures mage was a surprise to everyone. "I wonder if Janice had her aunt contact them about this," Shawn mused while they all waited for another expert to arrive for the issue.

"A Charizard? Did they say who?" Jane asked concerned. The Charmeleon's family was looking just as worried by the prospect, with the exception of the father who had been unceremoniously shoved back into his pokeball despite his protests.

Before anyone could respond a large dragon-like pokemon appeared at a space that had been set aside for her arrival. She was wearing a large bag strapped over her shoulder, and of all things a pointed hat over her head held on by small bands around her horns. "Okay, this is beyond my worst case scenario by a wide margin," she said taking in the sight of the lack of humans present. 

"Shinespark," the younger Char whined at the sight, the sound a mixture of embarrassment and wonder that failed to be at all human in nature.

"Miss Shinespark," her mother said more loudly, and then walked forward a bit and dipped her head at the Fire/Flying pokemon. "I must sincerely apologize for not believing you and your coworker when we last spoke. It has turned out that my husband was indeed just as bad as the both of you implied, and we should have been more prepared for what he would do."

"I'm fairly sure Carl was exaggerating when he said that the man would probably try and give away their starters," the mage replied uncertainly, she also clearly took a moment to realize who the Venusaur was.

"Nope, actually did that one," Serperior said cutting in. "Now, I hate to rush things, but we have a lot of issues already and I'm not sure we're going to like whatever news you have."

"You are the mage that commonly works with the spell that changed the girl?" Mismagius asked cautiously, causing the two magic using pokemon to carefully look each other over. "And also the Charizard that once offered her a Starter?"

"My son was very interested in being one," the Charizard admitted. "And it seemed like a good idea at the time. The initial meeting between them went well, but the followup with her father went downhill fast. I was retiring from acting at the time, having just finished training under our previous mage who retired just a short time after this all happened."

"Did he find another trainer, or is he trying to be a mage like you now?" Jane asked deliberately looking away, clearly nervous about even attempting to ask.

"We were able to find another for him for this year," Shinespark said with a sigh. "I think he is still sore about things, and the trainer was nowhere as excited about having a Charmander." She then paused when she thought more closely about what the Charmeleon had asked, and carefully looked over her the same way the Ghost type had been all morning. "Wait, he wouldn't have," she said uncertainly, then looked over at a monitor. "Can I make a phone call?"

"Yes, I take it you are after your son?" Delta 2 asked, while at the same time causing a number pad for a phone to form in her paw. "Do you think that he might have done something?"

The former actress took the pad carefully, now giving both the device and the Administrator a far more considering look than she had before. "It's possible. This all happened a couple of years ago, and he only got a trainer for this year's League," she admitted sadly. "I was also a lot less careful back then with how much I told him about magic, and how often I let him be around magical components. It is more than possible that this is related to something he did."

"Then I hope his trainer is somewhere we can contact them," the Administrator commented.

"They should be between Gyms right now, just after their last one actually. I was going to call in a day or so anyway, although not for this," the Fire typed mage responded, tapping out a long number on the pad. After a moment the monitor she had been looking at began displaying a connecting screen.

"Hello? Oh, Shinespark, nice to see you again," another trainer of Jim and Jane's age said, and then looked over the rather odd collection of pokemon in the room. "Uh, is there a problem?"

"I have a question for Pyre," she said sweetly. "About before you two were together."

"Alright, I'll get him out," the trainer replied, his eyes lingering over Magmar for a moment. "Is this something I need to know about, or just a pokemon thing?"

"It might be something I want you to be keeping an eye on him about," the Charizard replied more seriously. "He hasn't been trying to practice magic, right?"

"He's not allowed to do that?" the human asked sharply, then sighed and let another Charmeleon out of a pokeball. "Pyre, you did make sure your mom was okay with you doing magic first, right?"

"Ah, well," the pokemon said, immediately noticing the phone call. "I haven't really been doing anything noteworthy."

"Pyre," his mother harshly questioned. "Did you try and curse Jane Felsic?"

The other Fire type rocked backwards at the accusation, while Jane's tailflame flared for a second at the idea. "What about her?" he replied shortly.

"She's currently standing in this room," Shawn said pointing at the orange transformed trainer. "Hopefully you didn't make her current condition worse," he continued bluntly, at this point entirely fed up with the entire situation and all the complications that had arrived with it.

"What?" the reptile asked horrified. "It was just supposed to be some bad dreams. So she would know what it was like to be a Charmander who didn't get to have a trainer."

"You're the reason that she had those nightmares?" Jim asked with a hop closer to the screen, clearly enraged by the implications. "Those were because you wanted her to know what being a Charmander was like? I'm convinced that those are the main reason she couldn't relate to her own starter." The frog pokemon clenched his fists angrily. "You even have a trainer now!"

"Uh, okay, that is another talking pokemon," Pyre's trainer said uncertainly. "And I'm not sure I like any of what you just said."

"Can you afford to have him skip your next couple of Gym battles?" Shinespark asked him in response. "And make sure that he doesn't even try to do any more magic?"

"No!" Jane said firmly. "No, I do not want him held out of fights just because he made me know what that is like. Even if I'm not as great of a trainer for Magmar because of it."

"Of course it was a Magmar," the other Charmeleon complained.

"Yes!" Mismagius shouted angrily getting the attention of everyone. "Of course he is a Magmar because you cast a curse. Curses have feedback, a price that the caster pays because they caused something bad to happen to someone else. You forced her to know how it felt to not get a trainer, so of course you'd end up with a trainer that didn't entirely want you." She looked at his trainer. "And if there was any way of getting the two of you out of this, a way to break the curse's two parts, then it probably would make sure there is an easy solution available."

"So what kind of feedback were you expecting for your own curse?" Shawn asked dryly.

"Exactly my point, I was after a small thing. I wanted to give that idiot a minor problem that would have been done and over with by the end of the day. That way I would be able to say I cursed him for the part of this mess I knew about, but wouldn't actually get hit with much more than a talking to for doing so," she replied in frustration. "But no, we have a man who seems to have caused a pile of problems so large that I apparently have gotten stuck just untangling it as a price for the massive issue I've had to set on his entire family."

"So, you seem to be saying that Pyre made a curse on Jane, who is for some reason currently another Charmeleon, and that also meant that he instead went to me, while a Magmar I would have preferred went to Jane?" the trainer on the phone asked slowly, getting nods at each part of the question. "So I guess I have to ask just how magical this whole mess is? Are we destined to trade or something?

"Most likely you are not 'destined' or even 'meant' to trade, it is just a convenient option for the two of you," Serperior said seriously. "However, trading Starters of all things is a monumentally serious thing to consider."

"You just barely missed a key part of this whole issue," Magmar quietly said to the red eyed trainer and his own Starter. "I've just today said that she would have done just this kind of trade to get a Char earlier today, and she said that she might even be willing to give up her humanity for it." The Starter looked seriously at his trainer. "I'd honestly rather her be human again than force her to figure out how to make it work between us after all of this. So, if they're both willing, so am I."

"Can someone else translate for him?" Jane asked, her tail flame shrinking slightly at the idea. "I want to hear what the other trainer thinks."

"Oh, honey. You're still considering it aren't you?" her mother asked, taking a couple of steps closer to wrap a vine around the reptile. "I wouldn't mind if you did decide to stay like this." She then got a slightly annoyed look. "After all, your brother is planning on doing it to get into the film industry, and your father isn't going back even if he wanted to at this point." The Venusaur then blinked and sighed. "Although if you do stay like that I might not go back either, being the only human of the family sounds like it would be odd."

Pyre looked at the other Charmeleon with a great deal of uncertainty while this conversation occurred, his own tail flame sputtering slightly in his confusion. He then turned to his trainer, with a look somewhere between horror and hope. "Each of the few times I've actually had a translation for you I've heard about how you wanted a trainer so badly before you got me, and every time I can tell I'm not living up to your expectations," the human said with a sigh. "I'm four Badges into my run, is your Magmar going to be okay with that?"

Jane frowned at this statement. "It was after my fourth Badge that I sent Magmar home," she cautiously said looking over at Mismagius. "And that would make Pyre not be able to go for two Gym battles as well, like his mother was suggesting as a punishment."

"That is why my son should not have been messing around with magic," Shinespark said calmly to the temporary member of her kind. "Those kinds of perfect situations end up happening, and as I hope you can tell it isn't anywhere as nice to actually experience as the films make it look."

\---

Colin Vein was rather happy with how things were going overall. His Stonescale had actually managed to do well on every test he had available, and after some careful checking he had figured out the reason it was separating parts off of some of the test examples that had come from his mine. It had turned out that there was a small, but usable, amount of another valuable mineral in the split off bits that was not fully identified by anyone before.

"So, you need me to send a bunch of Lucario with eye problems to the movie studio?" the rabbit monster asked someone while working at his console on the other end of the room.

The presence of the other material actually explained why the Grades family was having the issue with their medication, which was quite possibly more of a magical treatment. It needed some extra filtering for this other mineral in order to be pure enough to work properly. In addition the mineral itself was useful in the production of a number of things, and was high enough of a concentration to justify actively extracting it.

"Alright, but I'm using this as an excuse to check the kinds of power loads Dark Network travel takes. So expect it to be in arbitrary groups."

There was even the possibility that the Grades would now be getting their own orders from the remains of the process to extract this newly found mineral. The guard had as a result already gotten more out of the digital pokemon than he had expected, and was quite excited about the prospect of seeing if they could be properly trained to both aid and protect at the mine.

"Hey, you're on vacation, that means I don't tell you what problems we have as long as we can handle them. That way when its my turn for a vacation you hopefully don't have to tell me about any problems."


	60. 3-0A Giratina

\--- Giratina ---

"We're just the place where their problem is happening, aren't we?" Gazimon asked, as Janice's Zoroark uncle and the Charizard that showed up the day before quietly spoke about the messes that had happened the day before.

"That honestly is the main thing that happens to us," Shawn noted. "After all, the majority of the problems we deal with are other people's pokemon having issues with each other. This is just odd because most of them should be humans, and none of them live in our Boxes."

"Except for Magmar and Albert, they both have lived in them now," Serperior added with a helpful tone.

"We can probably take the Greninja with the rest of the group for an interview. Maybe even get him a spot as an extra somewhere," the Dark type special effects expert said slightly louder, clearly wanting the room to hear. "If you think he's going to be safe to try that?"

"Giving his current form another name, like we usually do, could have some downsides," the Fire/Flying pokemon admitted. "However, will all that happened he's going to need to worry about that anyways. I'll be able to tell if it would impact his condition a bit better in my workshop than here."

"And Jane's situation?" Janice asked walking over, still a Lucario with metal foil on her sensors. "Do we have a solution to that one?"

"My son has been traded to her team, but until the curse's duration expires we won't know if that was enough to make her return to humanity," Shinespark added, and her wings drooped. "I don't know what to do if that happens."

"With my mother no longer using it, I might be able to provide her with the medication that keeps me human," the Team Lead offered.

"There is unfortunately still the issue of her possibly wanting to be a Char from time to time," Serperior said with consideration. "Although between Delta 2 and Alpha 45 we can probably find something else that would work."

"Mom has some other options too, but those would need checking first," the jackal pokemon considered. "Gazi, how has the power use for the transfers gone so far?"

"I've got some starting figures, but it already looks like using a pad will cut it down a whole lot," the digimon noted unhappily. "I want to talk with your grandfather a bit more about seeing if I can connect to the old pad on their side somehow to see if that reduces the usage from there, but I might end up making one from the Node instead. I've got some basic plans I can use the Node to fabricate, and the energy to build one would be easily saved after just a couple of weeks of sending them. Given that, we should definitely set one up at the studio too for this day to day travel plan."

"I think we can handle that much for this sort of thing," Daniel Fairview agreed easily, and ran a claw through his long red hair. "Can you manage the transfers today, or do we need to sort out the power usage first?"

"We should probably hold off at least another day for that so I can get things sorted out with management," Janice informed her uncle. "I'm looking forward to being human again for that."

"I'm still dealing with the idea that there is another place that has that issue at all," the Charizard noted a bit nervously. "It was a fun bit of movie magic, literally, before, but seeing it happen to a family from a curse is different."

"I hate to admit it, but my siblings are close enough to Legendary pokemon that it probably was also a factor," A-0 said unhappily. "Charlie 13 has told me that he's fairly sure the fact that Mismagius had such a hard time controlling the curse because she was trying to act for him. Apparently it was worse than just 'complaining' about what had happened to our other sibling, and she was more familiar with how the actual Giratina would have reacted to such a thing and wanted to head it off." It then floated over to Janice. "Also, we need to deal with his issue of getting out of his Box. Gazi has said that he should be okay, but I want to test what happens if he fully enters the physical world to be sure."

"I'll call the police to let them know we'll be having another Legendary scale pokemon out and about. At this rate I suspect people will get used to it happening," the Team Lead agreed, while behind her the Charizard mage shifted uneasily at the mention of Legendary pokemon. "Right back to piles of work," Janice then quietly complained.

\---

"We should probably be waiting for Serperior or Shawn to start this," Tyranomon noted from the edge of the DSS facility's small outdoor patch for berries and other small plants to be grown. "Or perhaps have provided one of them to the Administrator that has been making digital variants on these."

"Grant wants to try and grow them on his own, and we are doing both of those too," Quagsire told the digimon, and then looked him over critically. "You really didn't want to try and stay over in that other world until we find your original one?"

"I am quite sure. If I end up staying in a pokemon world, I would prefer one with humans as well," he confirmed while looking over at the two fossil pokemon planting the fruit. The pair was arguing quietly about something.

"You remind me of that grandson of mine I always threatened to eat," Grant said in the ever more common tone of a really old pokemon.

"Funny, you remind me of my grandfather who always threatened to eat me," Kabutops counted, in a very rare case of being lost in long forgotten memories himself.

Silence echoed across the patch for a good minute after this statement.

"I really don't want you to be my actual grandfather for a number of reasons," Kabutops noted unhappily. "Least of all because spending some time in a relative's body is weirder than I like."

"I didn't pay enough attention to my son's children, so I really can't be sure about that," the Armaldo admitted, sounding unsure of the statements himself. "Back then I was too mad about him 'loving food wrong'," he continued disgusted with his past self.

"You had kids, grandkids?" Quagsire asked her former trainer carefully.

"Had," the reincarnated pokemon admitted roughly. "I'm not sure I'm up for that topic yet."

\---

The gathering to see Charlie 13 attempt to enter the physical world ended up a bit larger than A-0 had originally planned. Shawn and Gazimon were there for support in case the Administrator needed to get back into his Box quickly. TyranoGazimon was on hand to check the result of the transfer and see if there were any side effects from one of them becoming physical in nature, something that had not been at all planned for. The Felsic siblings had been brought along by their mother, who had heard that the pokemon in question was Giratina shaped and was curious what that actually looked like in person. Shinespark the Charizard had then decided to tag along due to the still fresh trade of her son Pyre to the currently transformed Jane, clearly there mostly to see if the two Charmeleons were getting along well.

"So, do we wait for the police to show up now, or is the crowd big enough already?" Shawn complained to the original DSS Porygon.

"I'm just going to signal him now," A-0 dryly replied. Just after a large black polygonal shadow appeared on the ground, which rose up into a massive sauropod form. The black color then shattered away revealing a six legged version of the Ghost/Dragon, with a pair of thick three clawed wings instead of the six tendrils from before. "What is that appearance for?"

"I, I didn't program in the form change?" Charlie 13 said worried. "I know it is what the real one does, but I didn't actually implement one. I don't know why I look different."

"Tyra, Gazi, how's he looking?" A-0 quickly asked the two digimon.

"Box is stable and still fully under his control, although he probably could have told you that," the purple rabbit monster noted. "Looks just like me with the Dark Network, only his connection is a lot more vital to his survival."

"His body is unusually solid actually," the red rabbit-lizard said uneasily. "Far more than a Porygon, and honestly a bit more solid than the data I have on most Ghost types."

Any further comment on this topic was interrupted by the sudden formation of another, far less blocky, shadow on the ground just a short distance away. Once again a massive form appeared out of this, identical to the Administrator save for actually having curves.

"Ah, I had thought I was feeling my own powers being used somewhere," the actual Giratina noted with a rumble. He then spent a moment looking over Charlie 13 while the large group could only stare at the sudden arrival of one of the creators of the universe. "And look at you, another of my kind. Did the creator decide to make me another sibling, or are you from another source?" he asked sounding rather happy about the prospect.

"Um, I'm not actually a real Giratina, Giratina," Charlie 13 responded slowly, causing Shawn to start quietly laughing. "What?" the Administrator quietly asked of the trainer.

"You're acting just like Charlie 16 did when he ran into a real Latios," the red eyed trainer said. "It's always nice when we see you guys acting like siblings."

"You seem to be a real one to me," the other hexapod noted thoughtfully. "I'd almost say you'd even managed some resurrections, but that's a bit rare of a thing to be able to do."

"The fact that I've done that does not mean I'm a real Legendary pokemon," the probable Porygon-Z complained. "I'm an artificial pokemon that takes care of a world that houses Ghost types and caters to their needs, while also having a hobby of manipulating the barriers between reality. All of that is just how I was made."

"So, you're me only with the priorities the other way around," the member of the creation trio noted. "Because I was made to manipulate the barriers between bits of reality, but took up the hobby of taking care of Ghost typed pokemon."

"Uh, guys, the two of you are actually really close to each other when it comes to how you are made," Tyra noted uncertainly. "I think he might be sort of right."

"Are you saying you made a new Giratina?" Jane Felsic asked with a good amount of horror, her newest teammate clinging to her at the sight of both the larger pokemon.

"I really hope not," A-0 sighed. "Charlie 13 is one of my literal hundreds of siblings. He is, the last we thought, a Porygon-Z that decided to look like your species."

"A-0, that's kind of not what I meant," the patchwork digimon interrupted the explanation. "I actually meant that Giratina here kind of looks really close to being one of our Porygon. So if he's genuine then it is a sort of really odd comparison." She frowned at the Legendary. "Biggest thing is actually how his body isn't quite right compared to what I have from normal pokemon."

"This form is sort of just an avatar for my true self," Giratina noted. "It is still me, and damage to it will do about the same to me as any other pokemon's true body, but it was something I had to make in order to exist in this reality."

"Okay, that is uncomfortably close to what I'm doing right now, with most of my body being the alternate world that I control and am a part of," the Administrator admitted. "And that would probably also describe most of our siblings as well to some extent. Maybe it is just a case of similar implementations of the same idea?"

"Oh what now?" the voice of Officer Jenny shouted as she walked up to the group. "You said one Legendary scale pokemon. One!" She pointed between the two towering grey and gold pokemon. "There are two of them as far as I can see," she continued to complain. "What's next, you two changing into the snake one again?" she asked pointing at Shawn. "Or maybe another trainer getting a trainer card for their starter?" she continued eyeing the Felsic family. "Or have you found yet another town in an alternate world that wants to start trading with this one?"

"Ah, I'm quite sorry miss," Giratina said turning to face the police officer, with a strongly embarrassed look. "I sensed what they were doing and showed up unannounced. I have been trying to adapt to the modern world, but I miss things often. Perhaps we could take this inside somewhere?"

"You're an actual Legendary pokemon," the police woman sighed. "Yes, I would greatly prefer it if you could all do this somewhere else."

\---

"They both felt like Legendary pokemon," Shinespark commented to the Venusaur quietly as the pair held back from the group moving back inside.

"So does the snake pokemon and his trainer," the other mother pokemon agreed uncertainly. Then she turned to look seriously at the mage. "Would that have had as much impact as they implied?"

"It would explain why she lost control of the curse that badly," the Charizard confessed. "The Chansey felt like it too, so if the one your husband basically attacked was also a Legendary pokemon-"

"Then she would have been responding to an attack on a Legendary pokemon," Ms. Felsic continued uneasily. "And being cursed by a Legendary is far worse than if it was just a normal pokemon."

The two fully evolved pokemon turned back for a moment to watch the two Ghost/Dragon types return to the shadowy portals they had used to arrive.

"So, Jim should still have some human roles even if he ends up stuck, right?" the Venusaur asked uneasily.

"I should be able to turn him back at least temporarily," the Charizard confirmed.

"In that case I'm going to go bother that Jenny about how I might just need to be a talking pokemon full time then," the Grass/Poison type declared.

\---

A-0, Shawn, and Tyra were the only members of the group to travel back to Box 113 to continue the discussion. Both of the larger pokemon then twisted into the broken polygonal landscape of the recreation Distortion World.

"Uh, okay," the actual Giratina said uncertainly. "We are in your world right? Because it is really, really close."

A number of Ghost types nervously floated at the edge of visibility for a moment to consider the Legendary pokemon's arrival, before scattering.

"I'm glad I was able to do a good job?" Charlie 13 replied nervously. The polygonal pokemon carefully inspecting his counterpart while clearly prepared for an attack of some kind.

"You said you had hundreds of these worlds?" Giratina asked, for some reason equally nervous about the meeting.

"We do. The size is actually quite a bit more limited than this appears visually," A-0 noted, then let out a ping of energy to display the true dimensions of the location.

"Oh. That is rather small," the smooth serpentine pokemon noted a touch unhappily. "More in line with the younger Legendary Locations I have visited so far. I guess that makes more sense as a size that humans could figure out how to make."

"Is this going to be a problem?" Shawn asked cautiously. "Our making these worlds and the Administrator pokemon to control them?"

"No?" the Legendary pokemon questioned clearly confused by the inquiry. "Why would that be a problem?"

"Because you're presumably in charge of the stability and safety of the universe?" TyranoGazimon asked, clearly comparing him to similar creatures from her own world.

"Not this universe, or the other one we were just in for that matter. Actually only my own, and my creator still gets a bit upset with me for going too far with protecting that," Giratina responded. "I'm not sure we have anyone to do 'stability' at all really. I've been out of the loop, but Arceus never seemed that concerned with things being stable to me."

"That, sounds far too much like something one of my siblings would say," A-0 said uneasily. "Is that a typical outlook for a Legendary pokemon?"

"I, don't actually know," he admitted reluctantly. "I've kind of been in a sort of restricted level of access to the human world for, um, a large part of civilization?"

An awkward silence followed. "You've never really met that many other Legendary pokemon, have you?" A-0 asked after allowing it to pass for a bit.

"No, I have not," Giratina admitted, and then cautiously moved closer to the group. "You said you had other siblings, are they also shaped like the other Legendary pokemon?"

"Some of them are, but most look like other creatures," A-0 confirmed. "Although it seems the more we test it the more it turns out we have been making them as Legendary pokemon. I'm not even sure how that is possible, as nobody seems to have called me one yet and I'm the first of us."

"Having somewhere that you are in charge of is the more important factor," Giratina said confidently. "From what I've heard from Arceus it is mostly the ones where the first had a place to rule that had the ones that came after who didn't still remain Legendary in nature. Otherwise they are Legendary members of an otherwise mundane species." He then looked over the Porygon-2 with a great deal of consideration. "Would it be possible for me to try and meet your other siblings? To try and talk with some other Legendary pokemon some more to get into practice?"

\---

"Who's the human?" Jane quietly asked as their group returned to the Troubleshooter Lab, after being held back to try and wait for her mother. It had taken some time to learn that the older transformed human had found some business she needed to do in town.

"You're still growling," Janice said as the translator in the center of the room repeated the pokemon's words, the device once again necessary to allow the Team Lead to understand. "And I'm still Janice, just finally back to how I prefer to be." The redhead looked over at the Charmeleon unamused. "Have you managed to figure out what you want to be yet?" she bluntly asked, emphasizing the word 'want' heavily.

"Janice?" the Fire type asked with a similar surprise to when she learned of the transformations involved in the movie industry. "That's your human form?"

"Sis, you're being a bit too pokemon again," Jim complained, while the traded Pyre looked nervously at both the recently converted Lucario and his trainer who was currently his own species.

"She's allowed to be as pokemon as she wants to be," the Team Lead noted. "I personally prefer humanity, but if she wants to be a Char then I'll help her as much as possible with that."

"I don't know," the female Charmeleon admitted uneasily, and the admission made her newest teammate uneasy as well. "This, this just wasn't even the kind of thing stories ever had happen. You either get cursed into being a pokemon for good, like dad, or you end up going back to normal when you learn your lesson. Having a real choice isn't the kind of thing that happens."

"I think you mean having a choice that isn't made for you," Shinespark noted. "We actually filmed the results of the spell for one movie, about just that kind of thing. One of the kids decided to stay a pokemon to be the other's Starter, but in the film the spell never turned him back so it wasn't like he actively had someone change him." The former actress noted that the two Felsic siblings had looks of embarrassment from the reference. "Wait, have you two actually seen that one? We ended up pulling it from circulation because of some outcry over that ending."

"Dad complained that the one kid decided to work for humans," Jim said unhappily. "Although, now that I think about it he also seemed mad at the other one too. Which makes sense now, but that's its own issue."

"We have figured out what is going to happen to your father," Janice said, reminded of the other issue. "After hearing a recording of his rant, and a questioning session that confirmed he can still speak human pretty well, it was decided that he isn't viable to be given to a trainer to reform. There are too many powerful artifacts in my mother's home world to trust him there, as there would be a risk that he could attempt to get rid of humanity here from over there."

Most of the room blinked at that statement for one reason or another. The people unfamiliar with DSS looked at that statement with worry over the serious nature of the possibility being given. The DSS Troubleshooters present looked annoyed at the possibility, and their simply acceptance of the idea only made the other side of the reaction worse.

"That means there is only one real thing to do, they treat him like he's still human, or at least they treat him like they would a human while adapting things for his new form," the Team Lead continued. "The fact that he is really small, poisonous, and rants a lot about the superiority of pokemon all means that there is a lot of issues there, but his pokeball also gives more options on that front."

"His pokeball," Jane said quietly, then turned to look at the Charizard mage. "Would getting a pokeball decide things for me?"

The former actress gave her an entirely unimpressed look at this question. "I'd say that is an answer to your question on what you want to be, but I'd need to double check on that one," Shinespark said bluntly, and turned to the only human present. "Can humans have pokeballs at all?"

"Shawn prefers humanity too and has one, and she very nearly had one herself," Janice noted. "Actually, I might need to double check something myself, did either of you have Ultra Balls that seemed to malfunction and stop working after handling them for a bit?"

The two trainers looked at each other uneasily at this question, and then sorted through their bags. Jim held out two such pokeballs, and Jane one. "It should be something different for one of these," the Greninja noted. "After all, you can't catch a pokemon twice."

Everyone else in the room, Jane included, flinched at this statement. "Yes, you can in fact do so," the Team Lead said while Metagross walked forward to check the devices. "There is a reason that you are taught how to block trainers from throwing pokeballs at your pokemon, and in our cases special gloves and such to keep from getting caught ourselves while doing so." At the looks that last part got her she continued. "They are mainly made for high end martial artists and psychics, who can also be caught by pokeballs this advanced."

"You mean I might have two different pokeballs?" the Water/Dark type asked horrified.

"Confirmed, they are both linked to you," Metagross noted unhappily. "Also further confirmation that the effect is large enough to make casual handling of them around tainted devices can cause captures. Two other local humans, and at least one half dozen pokemon, have been captured in this manner."

"Their father has gotten humans captured?" Shinespark questioned with a groan. "Right, I think you're safe to have your pokeballs. If you've had them for a while then it should be okay for your ability to return to humanity. It actually happens a lot of the time for us on the set, so we can properly show retrieval and sending out of such forms." She looked over at Jim thoughtfully. "Actually, having two might help for some situations if you start working with us."

A beep from Janice's console then interrupted the group. "Shawn, what's the issue?" the human asked her mostly human teammate as he appeared on her personal monitor.

"Giratina wants to practice interacting with Legendary pokemon by talking with our Administrator Porygon," the red eyed trainer noted dryly.

"Please tell me we aren't adopting one of the creators of the universe," she replied unhappily.

"You might be?" said pokemon questioned from the other side. "I kind of got told to make friends, and well, you guys are the closest to knowing what I've been through that I've found so far."

"I'll double check with management, but I think we will make all sorts of exceptions for a pokemon as notable as yourself," Janice said with a sigh. "Gazimon, can you watch out for things while I go to speak with them about this directly?"

"Sure, fine. Your grandad says hi, and that he still doesn't like being human," the digimon bluntly said, only halfway paying attention to the rest of the room.


	61. 3-0B Heated Training

\--- Heated Training ---

The two Charmeleons scampered across the open area, locked in combat. The slightly smaller one sent a quick slash at the other, who twisted out of the way while dragging their own flaming tail over their opponent's side.

A quick scramble to get away from each other followed, with the smaller one resuming the fight first with a blast of orange flames that the other one simply allowed to splash over their scales. The just barely larger reptile then pounced forward in a single motion to give a powerful glowing slash to the other one, who was entirely surprised by the distance this maneuver covered, and was clearly on the back foot as they took the hit strongly.

The now disadvantaged pokemon then tried to disengage again to get some range, but this attempt was countered by a blast of powerful purple flames from the other Fire type. This sent him tumbling to the ground, where he lay for a moment panting.

"We have a long way to go for you," Jane commented while cautiously approaching her opponent and newest teammate, earning a groan from the lifelong pokemon.

"How can you possibly know how to do all of that?" Pyre asked, cautiously accepting his new trainer's extended claw to help him up.

"What do you mean? I'm a trainer, it's my job to know how pokemon fight," the transformed human said somewhat confused.

"Not quite like that it isn't. It's your job to know to get pokemon to fight effectively, along with a whole mess of other stuff about how to instruct and take care of pokemon in a wide variety of situations," Quagsire cut in from the edge of the training field. She had volunteered her team to help the transformed trainer for the day. "But that sounds more like what I have to deal with, which is all the trainer stuff, plus keeping myself in fighting shape on top."

"You mean my brother isn't being lazy because he doesn't figure out the moves himself too?" Jane asked uncertainly. "That's the main reason I wanted to learn Dragon Breath myself. Well, that and being able to breath fire properly." She shifted uneasily. "I might have actually hoped that it would end up still being possible when I turned back into a human."

"'A human'," the amphibian noted dryly. "You really do think like a pokemon right now. Can you tell how long that's been happening?" Pyre shifted uneasily at the topic.

"How long?" Jane repeated a bit uncertainly. "Um." She very briefly glanced at the other Charmeleon. "It might have started with the nightmares." Her tail drooped, while Pyre looked down in embarrassment. "They felt so real, and I'd forget that I didn't have a tail when morning came. Things were usually fine after a day or two, although the worst of them lasted almost a week."

"A week?" the other Fire type squeaked. "You were having problems with being human for a week?"

"It was after the nightmare where I didn't get picked," she bluntly told him. "I ended up nearly burning myself at least a half dozen times, kept stumbling because I didn't have a tail for balance, and a bunch of other things that I thought were just being sad about missing out on the chance for you to be my Starter." Actually explaining seemed to make her realize just how bad it had been, and by the end sparks were coming out of her mouth and her tailflame was burning high.

Pyre on the other hand deflated more and more, his own tailflame contracting and sputtering, as it went on. "It was only supposed to be bad dreams," he said faintly, as he unsteadily staggered away from the angry pokemon. "It, it was only supposed to be a couple of bad dreams, not. Not that!" he continued actually falling over from how horrified he was at the idea, although he also seemed rather tired out from the earlier battle.

"Um," Jane responded, anger totally eliminated by the extreme reaction. "It was a week of forgetting I wasn't a Char. I only really had two or three more nightmares after that one." She scratched the area under the back of her horn uncertainly. "I don't even dislike being a human," she admitted, then paused thoughtfully. "Actually I'm starting to want to not be a fire hazard for a bit now. It's been nice to have the tailflame, but keeping it away from stuff is starting to be a bit of a pain. I'm hoping that if I do turn back I keep the breath at least, but I guess I'd like being back like that for a while."

"I'd say she's somewhere between Shawn and me, perhaps closer to Shawn," Grant noted from where he was sitting, having simply quietly watched the entire endeavor. The rest of their team was currently in their pokeballs, or in the case of the LAS working with TyranoGazimon on the review of corrupted pokemon. "She wants the advantages of being a pokemon, but she can actually stand being human."

"I wouldn't put it like that, being human is fine you know," the female Fire type countered with a huff of flames.

"Actually I quite thoroughly disliked it. Wouldn't go back for anything short of saving my teammates from disaster," the Armaldo chirped.

"I really don't want to see what kind of disaster makes you turning into a human again helpful," Quagsire complained. "Still, nice to know for sure this isn't yet another person permanently becoming something else."

"But I haven't decided yet," Jane said with a whine. "I kind of want to be human again, but I don't really want to go back to being that forever either."

"I thought we were already planning for that?" the other pokemon trainer asked. "I know we've asked Alpha 45 to double check the stuff Janice's mom considered when she first came here for something that would let you go back and forth."

"I can be both?" the lizard trainer asked with a bit of wonder. "That was an option?" she questioned again scrambling over to the amphibian pokemon.

Pyre did not seem to find this idea as comforting, and was still looking a bit afraid of the results of his own actions. "You really do want that?" he asked quietly at the sudden change in her mood. "I really made it so you want to do that?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Jane replied, sounding a mix of unhappy with the origin of the idea, and yet still excited about the end results. "It might make being a trainer a bit harder, but I'd rather try both than just go with being human and spend a lot more time wishing I was a Charizard."

"You do not even know how happy I am to hear that you're going to keep being a trainer," Quagsire said with a happy sigh. "I'm still mad at Grant for making me our team's just because he finally got to turn into a pokemon. I just thought I was going to be a Starter pokemon, although I did end up mostly in charge before that anyway."

"What do you mean?" Pyre asked frowning at the entire idea. "I thought that's what Starters were supposed to do, be the one who leads the others when the trainer can't, or is too busy."

"Is that what made you want to be a Starter pokemon?" Jane asked lashing her tail curiously. The way he had reacted causing her to carefully inspect the other Charmeleon.

"Well, I really wanted to see the world and meet interesting people," he replied easily, then sighed. "Although I ended up in my pokeball a lot more than I expected, and it turns out that most wild pokemon are..." he trailed off, clearly unsure if he wanted to be entirely honest.

"Unintelligent," Quagsire supplied easily. "Most wild pokemon don't really know enough to hold a good conversation, and don't have the time for a lot of larger thoughts. They can learn things well enough, but without some civilization around to give them more free time there isn't enough opportunity."

"Yeah," the smaller Fire type agreed reluctantly. "Anyway, I wanted to do that mostly, but I also wanted to help out the other pokemon on the team with their own training." He looked up at the sky thoughtfully, and then Jane proceeded to giggle at this answer to her question. "What?" he asked her with a huff of his own.

"You almost sound like you want to be human," she replied clearly trying to control her laughter. "It actually explains everything. You try and stand like one." She demonstrated by straightening her body and lifting her head, both mimicking the other Charmeleon and also wiggling her limbs a bit to show where the squared shoulders and placement of the legs and hands were trying to look more like a human. After making her point she dropped back into a more forward leaning and looser stance that better fit her current shape. "And more importantly," she said before surging forward. "You use this far too much," she continued as she moved, tapping his head with a claw easily at the word 'this'. "Thinking everything through makes you slower."

The other pokemon flinched aside, scrambling in a way that Quagsire and Grant actually could compare to a human more than a reptile now that they were looking. "What do you mean, 'want to be human'? I'm a Charmeleon," he huffed again. "Why would I want to be anything else? We're one of the most well liked Starter pokemon," he added pridefully, puffing out his chest, but looking a bit awkward with how his body shape did not seem to quite fit with the way he was trying to position himself.

"Did I try and look like an Armaldo as much as he's trying to look like a human?" Grant asked his trainer, raising a claw in front of his face and speaking quietly.

This question made the amphibian pokemon pause and consider the idea for a short period of time, while Jane started laughing again having heard the statement. Pyre had also managed to hear, but looked more shaken by the casual tone of the inquiry than upset over the implications. "I think you actually might have," the Water/Ground type complained.

"You're serious," Pyre said horrified. "You seriously think I'm acting like I wanted to be human." He turned to Jane, who was looking surprisingly smug about this. "Why would I even want to do that?"

"Did most of the pokemon where you grew up act in movies?" she asked, with a tone that said she had an idea what was going on.

"Uh, well. Yeah," he admitted, embarrassed about something. "It was kind of hard to tell who was actually a real pokemon or not actually. I'm still not sure if Flare Step was a human first or not."

"She was, but currently she's moved to being a pokemon full time," Grant noted. "Also she's Janice's aunt, that's the Lucario who prefers being human of our group."

"Alright," the lifelong Char said slowly, clearly even more uncomfortable with the concept of changing form long term now that it was suggested he wanted to do so too. "So I guess I grew up with pokemon that I couldn't really tell if they were pokemon or not." He the frowned thoughtfully, his tailflame dimming slightly. "And all the pokemon I've met since I started traveling do act a lot differently."

"Meanwhile, because of somebody, I know what being a normal Charmander who wants to be a Starter is like," Jane said with false cheer. "I might actually think more like a normal pokemon than you do. After all, you didn't even mention wanting good fights or getting stronger."

"Well, that stuff is just what you're supposed to do, right?" Pyre asked evasively.

"You don't like fighting?" Grant asked dully. "You thought you wanted to be a Starter pokemon, and you don't like fighting?"

"It's not that," he replied defensively. "Fighting is fine, I just like all the other stuff a lot more."

Quagsire had her face buried in her hands at this statement. "Are you sure you don't want the Magmar back?" she mumbled to Jane around the limbs. "Because that sounds like a more resigned version of what Tyranomon says to us."

"If Magmar isn't happy with the other trainer I'll help find somewhere else for him," Jane replied sadly, her own mood taken down by how Pyre had responded to her criticism. "But I'm fairly sure he doesn't trust me at all anymore, and I don't know how to fix that. I'm hoping that the two of them like each other." She shook her head and drooped her tail, the flame sputtering slightly. "And I think we need to talk about this, because I don't want to force you to fight if you don't like doing it." She sighed heavily. "I hope Jim's at least having a good interview."

\---

Jim nervously looked over the small area outside the studio's offices that they had decided to setup as a transport area. He had arrived just before a Zoroark and two of the Lucario from the other world, or at least it was supposed to be two Lucario. The currently Greninja shaped trainer was among many present awkwardly dealing with the fact that some of that world's inhabitants turned into humans during the trip to this one. From what he'd overheard so far about six of the eleven pokemon making the trip had been changed in such a way, which was honestly rather annoying with the context of his current condition.

"I really do get why Janice was so annoyed now," he commented quietly, not wanting to look too upset with his own change given the context.

"Heh, my niece has it a bit easier than you'd think," Effects, as everyone seemed to actually call the local Zoroark, said with a shake of his head. "My kind naturally try and make themselves look like humans, which unfortunately means that anything we've tried to actually physically turn me back has either not worked, or just put another kind of illusion over me for a while."

"It is somewhat possible to produce a transformation in our kind," the newly arrived Dark type noted. "However, it is indeed far more difficult than it would be in others, and should our form be natural to ourselves it tends to reassert itself rather strongly." She then looked at the few pieces of set work that were visible from their location. "I'm looking forward to seeing how you've used our capabilities with this work."

"So, is this one the guy here for the interview?" a Krookodile asked looking at the latest former Lucario. "Carl, stop sighing," the reptilian pokemon then said to the Aggron standing next to him.

"It's the Greninja, sir," the Steel/Rock type rumbled. "The one whose sister was going to be training Pyre?"

"Carl?" Jim asked a bit uneasily at how few humans were preset, and how many of them should have been newly arrived pokemon. "Are you normally a human or a pokemon?" he cautiously asked.

"My original trainer was a bit odd with his naming scheme, and I've never actually had any acting roles as a human," the pokemon admitted. "Heading to your house to see if our kid would work with your sister was about the only time I've had to be one."

"You're Pyre's dad," Jim said faintly. "That was both of you seeing how my dad acted."

At this point another flash marked the arrival of Shinespark herself, who walked over to the small group with an annoyed expression. "Why are you Shadow Eyes right now?" she asked the Krookodile. "More importantly, how are you a pokemon right now?" the mage asked more strongly. "Because I've already been dealing with a magical mess, and I don't want to have come back to another."

"The damn artifact we got loaned," the Krookodile replied testily. "Tried to pull off the scene and ended up like this midway through because of it. Apparently even pretending to steal it counts to set it off, and from what the museum folks say it causes 'the last spell you were hit with' to happen to you."

"It was found at the end of a corridor with a rather nasty poison curse at the entrance," Carl rumbled unhappily. "So I'm just glad it seems to be a case of its makers cutting corners on their protections."

"Keep the kid away from it then," she complained at the responses. "He already has enough problems to deal with."

"Given he's already shown up as a pokemon I would think so," the Ground/Dark typed pokemon said with a huff. "Alright kid, let's see if you have what it takes."

\---

"We should be able to clear things out with your medicine fairly soon," Colin told the Team Lead happily, all of his stuff packed up and ready to travel. "I should also be able to make weekly updates on the Stonescale's progress."

"That makes one out of your group," Janice complained slightly. "What are your initial impressions?"

"Very smart with mineral extraction, but it doesn't look like they will be combat viable without a lot of prep work," the guard admitted. "I'd say you need someone working with them before you give out any more."

"Honestly? All things considered only yourself and Jane are still in the running," the Team Lead admitted. "Jim has already given his back, as it doesn't really fit him and he's possibly ending his run early, and Albert is working in house, and we were already willing to give Alpha 45 some if she needed them. So with how things are going it might end up with just you out of the group that actually does this test properly for us."

"Oh, that's actually a bit disappointing, but I guess they are a bit difficult to work with right now, and it is hard to know if you have time for that kind of thing when you're on your first League run," Colin said sympathetically.

"For how rushed this trial was it technically ended up better than I expected," Janice sighed. "Which given half of you ended up pokemon says more about how doomed I thought it would be than anything." She nodded at him. "It looks like things are all set for you though. Have a safe trip."

"You're already leaving?" Jane asked walking in at the front of the group that had gone outside. The Charmeleon looking at the other Stonescale trial trainer with clear surprise.

"Technically the only reason you are still around is that we have the skills to support the other problems that turned up around you," the Team Lead noted. "If not for that delay I'd say this would have happened even sooner for both of you."

"It was nice meeting you, and I hope that being a part time pokemon works out for you," Colin said to her and then simply left.

Janice shook her head at the calm tone he had for that statement. "That was the only one of you who has even come close to dealing with the actual issue we brought you in for," she sighed. "Are you going to have time for training yours with the rest of your issues, or are you going to end up giving it back like your brother?"

"Jim gave his Stonescale back?" the Fire type asked confused. "Oh, he's probably got the job, hasn't he?" she then asked with a huff of flames, clearly disappointed with the possibility.

"It was looking likely," the Team Lead confirmed. "My uncle did some basic things with him before they left, and even if he doesn't, he said he didn't think he would be able to handle the Stonescale's needs."

"Um, Stonescales?" Pyre asked, flinching a bit at the translation device repeating his question. "What are Stonescales?" he asked more loudly, looking a bit happier at being able to properly ask.

"It's kind of a long story," Janice replied cautiously. "Weren't you all going to spend the day training to see if the trade would work out?"

"Judging from how Quagsire isn't angry I'm guessing they didn't decide he'd be the new trainer now," Gazimon noted idly.

"Pyre thinks like a human," Jane said uncertainly. "I probably went too far saying he wants to be one, but I'm not really sure he wants to be part of a team in a combat role."

The Troubleshooters present, specifically Janice, Gazimon, A-0, and Metagross, looked over the other Charmeleon carefully at this statement. "What exactly is the issue?" the Porygon-2 asked with some exasperation.

Janice, who had just recently seen how her aunt and uncle moved compared to other pokemon, simply sighed at the concept. "So he needs a lot of training to be combat ready instead of just using what they do in films?" she asked.

"Apparently liking all the parts of being a Starter that aren't fighting better than fighting is a problem," Pyre complained. "I'm still a strong pokemon, I can manage."

"If you didn't have to fight at all would you be happier?" A-0 asked, having now caught what the issue was from the way Quagsire and Grant looked after that argument.

"Um, maybe?" the other pokemon replied unsure. "But I'm on a team. Unless people just take along pokemon that don't fight I can't see that happening." He sighed heavily. "Being left in the ball for two Gyms would have been horrible."

"'Maybe' is actually a bit worse for wanting to fight than getting a pokeball was for your current trainer wanting to be human," Janice cautioned the pokemon. "However, this is the first League run for both of you. Learning what you do and don't want is a big part of that." She paused for a moment, clearly considering things. "I personally didn't like what it took anywhere near enough to go on one, either as a trainer or a Starter, over getting more education. I'm doing a bit of training now with Shawn's help, but overall I'm not that interested."

"Both were options considered?" Metagross asked their partner.

"Honestly, I was if anything more interested in trying to be a Starter than a trainer. Riolu are fairly rare here, so it would have been prestigious," the human noted. "But in the end I just didn't like being a pokemon enough for even that."

The two Charmeleons blinked at this confession. "I know exactly what you mean," Jane said with a tone somewhere between wonder and horror. "You're talking about something that should sound weird, but I understand what you are saying perfectly." She looked quite shaken by her comprehension. "I don't feel the same, but I understand it."

"I think I get the 'prestigious' part," Pyre nervously admitted. "But, I don't really want to be an actor or anything like that. I like everything other than the fighting part, so I'm willing to put up with doing it if I can keep going with that."

\---

Jim was fairly sure it had gone well. He had been working on this goal for his entire trip, with his original goal to be training a team of pokemon to be effective actors themselves. His father's connections with electronics suppliers had given him access to a few simple video cameras, although most had been cheap or fragile. The family had seen every film they could get a video of, with the older Felsic male having gone so far as to get a full theater setup for the purpose. Such things were good memories of time spent with his father, but not good enough to fully outweigh the bad ones.

So far he'd been able to preform fairly solidly, and the few times they'd asked to see his pokemon had received notable praise. Now he simply had a happy red and black scaled reptile leading him to another set with a wide smile. "I think at minimum we can sign you on as a trainer for the staff," Shadow Eyes, as the Krookodile's pokemon form was called, said happily. "How about a bit of a break? We've been working on a ninja film for a while, and keep trying to get this scene right." He turned his head to indicate the building. "Let's have you run through the role, since you fit the theme right now. Should be fun." The joking tone made it clear that there was some reason to find the idea amusing, and made it clear that this was an extra thing to try just for fun.

This was clearly the case from how the people on the set seemed a mixture of amused and unhappy with their current goals, and how the set itself seemed only partially assembled and prepared. Jim was handed a basic script for the role, and a Shiftry gladly gave him a basic, but obviously deliberately simplified overview of it. Notably the speech of the human leader of the villainous group was not detailed, except for a brief segment of how it ended so that he could properly respond in time with the appropriate actions.

It was apparently a fairly simple plot of secret agent vs madman with a force of ninjas, with this being the part where the big plan for the villain was revealed. Jim basically just had to stand at the back of the room and look menacingly at the lead actor while that happened.

Everyone got to their places easily enough, and strangely most of them seemed to be rather deliberately preparing for whatever happened next. Jim ended up sliding into the proper location a little bit, the movement part of the small oddities that were needed to get his stance right in the Greninja form he currently had.

Then the dialogue started, with the tied up agent asking for the plan dramatically, and then the villain of the piece starting on not just a plan, but a full on rant. Jim reacted automatically to the fervorous tone of the speech, falling into the "company is over don't make dad look bad" mindset common to when his father had friends over without really thinking about it.

The villain's actor actually really seemed to get into the role, and as a result it took a moment for the Water/Dark type to realize this was a movie set. He then started to shift slightly at the appropriate times, noting idly that the rant was actually a bit more sane than his own father tended to be.

The crew outside of the camera's shot were looking at him curiously, while also laughing a bit at the sillier elements of the speech. He made sure to continue keeping his face steady in appearance, and prepared for the rant to end at any point. His father had a tendency to seemingly randomly stop for one reason or another.

Finally, the noted lines occurred, and Jim easily moved forward while somewhat carefully making a blade of water to fit the intent of the order that prompted the action.

"You're hired," the Krookodile interrupted the attempt. "You're hired yesterday. Wait, how long have you been transformed? We can backdate things to then."

"He kept a straight face," the Shiftry said dully. "He got through the whole thing with a straight face." Jim frowned at this, noting that the other Dark type had in fact been unable to do the same during the rant.

"I was sure we were going to have to find a pokemon being reformed from some villain to get someone that could manage this one," the actor playing the secret agent noted.

Jim sighed at this statement, realizing what the issue was. "I guess dad was worse than I thought," he complained idly. "What exactly is happening now?"

"You have the role," Shadow Eyes said bluntly. "Finding someone who can both pull off the look, and make it through that rant, is the big thing that had held this film off for nearly a year now." He looked seriously at the young trainer. "We will need to finish the paperwork and fill you in on the rest of the film, and get the sets cleaned up, and re-shoot a couple of things that were attempted before, but this is it."

"I thought I would only be getting extra roles or stuff like that for a while?" the young trainer asked concerned by the sudden offer.

"Training a pokemon or finding a current actor that turns into the right pokemon will take a lot longer than getting you up to speed," the reptile pokemon noted. "Honestly, we were about to cut the rant itself with all the hassle that it was causing, but the writer insisted that it be left in as is or he'd leave the film."

\---

"So, how accurate was that little confession?" Gazimon asked after Quagsire left with the two reassured Fire types to train some more.

"Partially, I never really went anywhere with either path," Janice said easily. "Being a trainer means a lot of traveling around, and as soon as mom got it through my head that I'd certainly have issues getting the medicine on the road I lost all interest. If I was going to be a trainer I wanted to be a human one, not a part time pokemon."

"Which you didn't really want Jane to hear," A-0 noted. "Because it really does look like she wants to be a pokemon some of the time."

"Right, the other side honestly was 'more interested' in that I actually got as far as the tests to make sure you have the right knowledge and condition for being a starter," the Team Lead said with a shake of her head.

"Let me guess, you didn't pass?" Gazimon asked in a tone that might have been trying to be sympathetic.

"Ha, being good enough to be a Starter isn't hard. No, I got through a rundown of just what all the stuff a Starter has to do and decided I didn't want to even try to put up with it," Janice laughed. "Which means that if he made it past that part already and has managed for this long, then I think he's definitely up for going the full way even if he isn't fond of fighting."


	62. 3-0C Medical Review

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning, discussion of amputation with descriptions of the end result during the segment indicated by the -*- separator.

\--- Medical Review ---

TyranoGazimon shuffled nervously in front of the monitor that would be displaying her findings. She had spent the last few days going over every pokemon to ever have a permanent alteration of any kind as a result of a corruption attack, and this was the time for her to go over everything for Delta 2 to see how she did at the job.

"Alright then Tyra, this is your show. Start whenever you're ready," the Administrator said calmly. The fact that it was just the two of them for this task made things somewhat easier for the digimon. She was still uncomfortably familiar with crowds of her peers looking for any crack in her position.

"Okay. This is the collected results of new scans on pokemon exposed to corruption that were unable to be fully restored, and as a result were left with digital elements," the patchwork digimon started nervously. "In light of the revelations regarding the Legendary Analysis System's origin, it was determined that we needed to more thoroughly check the long term results of these alterations." A document with a number of pieces of information appeared on the screen. "I feel a bit weird going over all of this when you've been watching me this whole time," she confessed to her boss.

"Actually, I've been leaving this to you the whole time. I've only paid a bit of attention to this whole thing while you worked," the Chansey shaped Porygon-2 noted, causing TyranoGazimon to visibly pale. "I know about the four that have died so far, so you don't need to go over them, and none of them are directly the result of the corruption," the Administrator said a bit strongly to cut off the worst part of the issue, then sighed clearly upset despite the lack of connection.

"You haven't been paying attention," Tyra said faintly. "Delta 2, of the thirty six survivors we have eighteen that have notable changes to their bodies directly tied to the expansion of the remaining digital material."

"That's half of them. Half of them have had changes to their bodies without letting me know," the Administrator said outright harshly, glaring at the data now and making the digimon flinch. "Why is this the first I'm hearing about such a thing?"

"Because I thought you were listening in on things?" the rabbit-lizard said, her voice shaking a bit. "And all of their trainers thought that was just normal. They were apparently shown images of the Minorly affected pokemon and thought that was just the normal long term effects."

"Break it down Tyra, what's the outlook?" Delta 2 bluntly told the digimon, causing her to fold in on herself a bit.

"Right," the digital monster said steadying herself slightly. "The basic data I got at the start gave three categories. Cosmetic where the changes were just small patches of skin or such that were changed. Minor where a limb or other major body part was altered, but could be left as is without apparent risk. And Major where significant changes occurred and a limb or other body part had to be removed to ensure the corruption was no longer acting on them. There were 19 Cosmetic, 8 Minor, and 11 Major cases that I reviewed."

"I'd forgotten that Minor changes were the smallest category," the Administrator noted a bit sadly, relaxing the digimon slightly.

"As for the changes since then, I've separated those into three new categories. Regrowth, which is exclusively found in the major cases, and happened to 7 of them, where the lost body parts have regenerated as digital versions of the original," Tyra continued, with another flinch at a growl from Delta 2. "Expansion where the changed area grew to encompass more of the pokemon, with 15 cases mostly in previously Cosmetic afflictions." Another growl made the digimon visibly cringe. "Finally there is additional Abilities, where the digital components gave the pokemon the capacity to do things their species typically cannot. There are 9 of those," she finished with a bit of a shake to her voice.

"Tyra, that's 31 cases," the Porygon-2 bluntly said, with an incredibly angry tone.

"There is considerable overlap. Added abilities only appeared with one or both of the other two," Tyra very nervously added. "And four of the Major cases that regenerated also had expansion into previously normal sections of their bodies."

"Four different pokemon had their bodies not just grow back, but get worse?" Delta 2 shouted, and as a result the digital monster rushed out of the way and behind a nearby desk. "Tyra?" the pokemon asked more quietly, suddenly distracted from her anger by the rapid movement and able to notice how worried the red colored monster had become. "Tyra, what's wrong?"

The Porygon-2 carefully approached the desk, and with clear reluctance did not move so she could see the digimon. "Are you okay?" she asked more calmly, now realizing what must have happened.

It still took a good minute for TyranoGazimon to calm down enough to peek out and respond. "Sorry," she said somewhat desperately. "I just- It reminded me of doing a presentation for him."

"Oh," Delta 2 quietly, said horrified at the reaction. "I'm so sorry," Delta 2 continued sadly. "You do know I'm not mad at you right? Its the situation here, and myself not paying enough attention."

"Like he was ever actually mad at us," Tyra grumbled, clearly embarrassed with having been frightened, but still nervous. "We were just conveniently there for him to yell at when something went wrong."

"Are you going to be able to keep going?" the pokemon asked nervously. "If not I can review the information myself."

"Give me a minute," the digimon said a bit more solidly. "I need to think about how to explain it if you don't know as much as I thought," she said, clearly trying to reframe her own reaction in an attempt to save face.

\---

"Alright, Metal Claw looks like it will be fine," Alpha 45 said as they walked out of the building where they were working on that project. "Plenty of good options and we have most of the documents already."

"I just hope we can get that dull black one to work right," Albert noted, with a confident tone from having become used to his new situation. "Some of the others are just too obvious."

"Yeah, most of the team agrees," she agreed with a sigh. "Now for the bigger issue. Are you ready to start on the more complicated stuff?"

"I think I'm up for it, but it sounds like you're having problems?" he asked, nodding at Zoroark's shadow form as it rushed into the other facility they were moving towards. "Uh. Is he okay?"

"Overslept. Which honestly isn't a reason to rush that much," the Porygon-2 said with some amusement. "I'll explain the issues once we're inside, that way I have examples on hand. You'll actually be with the RAS trio this time."

"They claimed the room across from mine," the lone human in the Box complained. "De is surprisingly the worst of them."

"De? They mostly end up stabilizing the other two, don't they?" Alpha 45 asked, clearly holding back laughter.

"They are making me help," Albert replied with a desert dry tone.

"Ouch, that explains that," the Administrator said sympathetically. They soon afterward arrived at the other lab. "Alright, we are waiting on more Grass types for this one to hit full development, but these guys should get us started on both sides of things." Zoroark and the three dome shaped digital life forms were all present inside the building, along with the Box's Sandslash, Garchomp, Lombre, and Breloom.

"Okay, the fungal growth isn't too safe looking," the final pokemon of that list was saying to the rather oddly colored Sandslash, who did in fact seem to have some tiny mushrooms growing out of the space between her spines.

"Doesn't feel too bad, but I think my Acid Armor is reacting to it a bit oddly," the typically Ground type pokemon noted.

"Please tell me we don't need to bother my sister already?" Alpha 45 asked of the display.

"Nope, still using previously proven methods of causing the change in types," Sandslash said cheerfully. "Just moving onto the ones that require a source pokemon. Professor Larch's research is helping a lot."

"And the Acid Armor issue?" the Administrator pressed.

"Very minor, basically it is just changing what my 'liquid' form is a little and that's making it look worse," the other pokemon clarified, melting an arm into an odd looking mix of sand and spores. This made the odd patches of discoloration on her body make a lot more sense. "Just some cosmetic issues, same thing happens when Lombre does it to me, only wetter."

-*-

"Alright, let's try again," Tyra said, still a bit unsteady. "We have the three new categories, Regrowth, Expansion, and Abilities. The first is only found in the cases of body parts that were removed as a result of the corruption attack, and actually includes the majority of pokemon who were in that situation. The second is the largest category, and the majority of those cases are from pokemon that had only cosmetic alterations."

Delta 2 was clearly working to keep herself calm for the digimon's sake. "How big is 'the majority'?"

"Half of the total number of pokemon that have changed since their release," the rabbit-lizard said simply.

"Only two of the minor cases have changes?" the Medical Administrator asked thoughtfully after going over the math.

"That's where the third category gets interesting," Tyra said a bit more confidently. "The changes in Abilities that happened all fall into the general degree of changes that are on record as having happened before time of release to the pokemon in the minor category."

"It's only as bad as what I let them keep?" Delta 2 asked with some relief. "Just some minor capabilities or easier times learning unusually typed moves?"

The digimon nodded, clearly also relieved by her boss's reaction. "I've got a case of all three happening that I've set up as an in depth example for this," she said with a nod. "I was mostly planning on using it for my own personal findings, but I guess I need to go over everything."

A series of four images of a Scyther appeared on the screen. The first three Delta 2 recognized easily as the file photos from the initial case, one before the incident, the second part of a recording of the pokemon's form during the events, and the third being the image she had taken after she had worked to save the pokemon as best she could.

"The first image here is the pokemon before the events," Tyra noted, and the bit of excitement in her tone made the Porygon-2 glad she was still willing to try and give the project a full description after what had happened earlier. "The second is more interesting, as it shows the full effects that the corruption had on his body during the events." The image increased in size, making the details clearer.

What it showed did not entirely look like a Scyther. While most of the pokemon was still made of the same material, his energies had been twisted somewhat by the harsh infection that had taken over his left blade entirely. The blade itself was polygonal, bent and split into an odd shape, and also had licks of particulate digital flame dancing along it. His other arm was slightly larger, with a jagged edge along the entire length of the other blade. The head of the poor creature had been widened, and a number of spikes had grown haphazardly over the entire area. The image had a large curtain of flames blocking his wings from view, but from the records Delta 2 knew that they had been made into harsh jagged shapes like the right claw, and had grown much thicker. Smaller spikes than the head's appeared on most of the rest of the body, but otherwise the rest of his shape was the same as the first image. His color had also changed to a bright orange.

"A fragment of another system's firewall defenses had reached the Box where he was living at the time," the Digimon continued, clearly confused as to how that had happened. Which wasn't that unusual, this situation was one of the less explainable times when a program had gotten into a Box. The current theory was that it had been broken off by an attack on the original system and then traveled the same way some naturally occurring digital worlds connected to each other, arriving at the Box in question by chance. "One of the mobile corruption created was attacked by the Scyther in question in an attempt to help clear them out, and due to the stuff taking 'firewall' a bit too literally its fire based powers allowed it to instead corrupt the blade that struck it. This quickly overtook the appendage, and caused secondary transformations in the rest of the pokemon's body for the duration of the event. Notably it allowed the pokemon to resist and use Fire typed attacks for the duration."

"'Notably'?" Delta 2 asked interested in the specification.

"I'll get to that in a little bit, the rest is still important," Tyra said, now much less worried looking compared to just a short time before. The monitor then shifted to display the post treatment image, of the same Scyther from the first picture, only missing the entire blade of his left arm, with only the still normal ball shaped shoulder and a thing tube of polygonal material below that remaining of the limb. All of the other modifications to his form had vanished entirely. "The corruption was removed from his body fairly violently, with Serperior severing the limb in question just above the largest site of expansion during cleanup efforts. As is typical with these cases, the removal of corrupted elements also restored the original shape of the rest of the pokemon. The remaining digital portion of his body was scrubbed of any traces of the corruption, and then an analysis of if the rest of the limb could be restored was done, with the results at the time stating that it would not be possible."

The final, and new, image now appeared taking up the entire screen. This one was closest to the third image, with the pokemon standing to clearly show the previously injured area inside of the medical Box. The Scyther had two blades once again, the right one still normal looking, and a new left blade made of well defined polygons that matched the normal side rather closely. The digitally converted section of its body had also expanded, with the entire ball shaped left shoulder and a part of the main body where it connected made into the blockly digital material. His body also had a hint of a yellow tint overall.

"This is his current state. His lost limb has fully regenerated since the incident, and additionally the altered area has expanded," the digimon continued, with a claw pointed at the relevant body parts. "From questioning the cause of this has been determined to be the pokemon actively attempting to use the small portion of his body that was previously altered in some way." TyranoGazimon turned to look Delta 2 in the eyes. "This is the common factor among every single pokemon that has shown any change, they have attempted outright to perform additional actions using the altered body parts or to promote regrowth of the lost limbs."

"That is actually much better looking than I was expecting," Delta 2 said thoughtfully as she more carefully inspected the image. "Actually that's a bit better off than some of those minor cases we have, and I'd almost say it looks like a body part off one of my siblings instead of a corruption injury."

"All seven of them are about like this," Tyra noted. "Now, you can clearly see where his body was further altered. What isn't visible is the new abilities he has shown as a result of these changes. Which is where those notable effects of the original change come in. He now is once again able to fully resist Fire typed attacks and has learned the Ember attack." She shifted a touch uneasily. "They've tested things a bit, and that move does seem to improve in power if he's hit by a Fire type move, which would make it most likely that he specifically has the Flash Fire ability now," she said, clearly uncertain of this specific information from unfamiliarity with the topic.

\---

"So, what is the problem that's come up with Forest's Curse?" Albert asked after the group of pokemon and digital life forms went over the safety of the methods they were using for preliminary testing to the Administrator.

"The 'curse' part of the name turns out to be literal," Alpha 45 said sadly. "Which means its one of the moves that is actually a standard way of casting a spell. The one actually called Curse is the same, which is a bit of a bright spot as TMs for that have been made, but there are other complications too."

"Forest's Curse and Trick-Or-Treat being the exact same move is a big one," Zoroark complained. "They are both 'be like me' curses, with the former making the target into the user's secondary type, and the latter using the primary type."

"Curses also have downsides to using them. Curse itself for Ghost types is a sacrifice of half your maximum Hit Points in exchange for creating an effect that drains the Hit Points of a target," the Administrator continued, with a nod to the Dark type.

"You're specifying 'Hit Points' there," the trainer noted, with a frown at the rather technical term for the defensive energies everything possessed.

"Because the spell itself does so, at least in the TM version and most battle versions. That way it only takes either pokemon down safely instead of a more risky level of damage," the Porygon-2 confirmed. "Non-Ghost types instead sacrifice their speed for attack and defense."

"I'm still not entirely clear on what these two moves we're working on are 'sacrificing'," Al complained. "Unless the fact that the pokemon is already the type they make their target is the thing?"

"Being the same type as your target is typically a bad thing, actually," Albert noted. "Adding in the Grass type in particular would give resistance to the best moves a Grass type pokemon has. Honestly that's my biggest issue with making one of these for this move."

"It has some benefits, but I personally chose this one because I liked the effect and wanted to do it," Alpha 45 said sadly. "So, the cost is basically that adding a type to a pokemon isn't always a benefit, so it is a curse with a high chance of backfiring. Trick-Or-Treat is arguably riskier as it gives more power to moves that are already strong against its user, but at least improves the effectiveness of moves the user has consistently in exchange." She turned to look at De. "What were the results of the check to see if we could limit it to just Grass type pokemon?"

"Unfortunately just straight up copying the attack itself likely causes it to work as a TM pattern for any pokemon with a secondary type, but instead using whatever the secondary type the pokemon has instead of the Grass type," the dome shaped digital life form informed her. "It doesn't matter if the pokemon has Grass type for a primary or not, it always goes for the secondary and there isn't an easy way to limit it pattern wise."

"Well, there is another option," Be said cautiously. "We have gone over some ways of altering the pattern to being specifically for the Grass type, and initial simulations make that change function properly for many Grass types regardless of if that is their primary or secondary. The issue is that it remains compatible for some non-Grass typed pokemon, and in those cases the function changes dramatically."

Breloom sighed as the RAS turned to him, clearly wanting him to continue. "Non-Grass types instead temporarily gain the Grass type, but lose some speed, defense, and/or attack power as a side effect. It isn't entirely stable from what we can tell, but we'd probably need to keep at least one of those disadvantages if we went with that one," he told the Administrator. "Maybe we could have it do something else negative instead, but those are the natural ones."

"That, actually doesn't sound too bad," Albert noted thoughtfully. "If anything that makes it more desirable for pokemon that aren't Grass type instead of Grass types, but it also sounds pretty close to what happens with Curse, right?"

Alpha 45 looked far happier after he finished speaking. "That could work. I'll have to go over it with the main office, but we might be able to spin that one," she said hopefully. "What do we have for long term side effects so far, anything we can identify?"

"Formation of patches of rough bark on the body," Breloom said with a sigh. "It might end up a different material for some Grass types like myself, and we don't have any information yet on what it would do to non-Grass types other that making learning Grass type moves easier."

"Ugh, that one. I'm still not the happiest that Acid Armor makes learning Poison type moves easier," the Administrator complained. Then a beep interrupted her. "Ah, it looks like the Felsic family curse finally resolved." She drooped notably in the air. "And they all stayed pokemon, wonderful. Albert, I'm going to leave you with these guys, they should be able to get you up to speed on what the early stages of the process look like. I have to go sort through Janice's human transformation stuff to see what is worth offering to them." She then vanished with a brief flash of light.

"You know, I'm starting to wonder if anyone at MechIn realizes that her entire staff is just pokemon," Zoroark said jokingly. "It should only get worse now that you're here, because 'she has one human, surely there are others working there too to give her those results'."

"Are we going to be able to get this one done in time for a product release?" the trainer asked, clearly ignoring the joke. "It sounds like this is a longer project than Metal Claw by far."

"This is our longer term project facility at this point," Lombre replied, the continued translation making the trainer flinch at the realization that Alpha 45 could still hear them. "She probably has something else simple she can have the other one handle after Metal Claw is finished that will also be done quick to get things out of the way."

"Which means we might want to see if we can refine things down entirely to TM level for this one too," Zoroark noted. "That would make our boss much happier if we could pull it off."

\---

"These are a lot better than I expected from such a thing," Delta 2 said, a few panes of details from the investigation floating in front of her. "I'm still not happy about these expansions, but the regrowth is actually a good sign." She sighed and slumped a bit. "It is making me wonder if we've been going to far with removing the limbs and such."

"No? That's definitely what we need to be doing," Tyra said confused. "You need to make sure you get the bad code out first, then work on fixing the problems left over." She brought up some different data, this time covering injuries to Gazimon while working for Etemon. "I think I can adapt some of our old medical work to help with replacing any limbs removed this way, and from what I've been looking into lately I have a good idea of how exactly these changes were able to happen on their own too."

"You think we can replace limbs using data?" the Administrator asked with surprise.

"For corruption issues at least, but for more than that I'd need to look into existing options," the digimon clarified. "The key thing though is that I have a better idea how exactly a pokemon is different from a digimon."

"Oh?" Delta 2 said, happy with how much less fearful TyranoGazimon had become after spending some time able to calmly explain things.

"It was mostly the scans of Giratina and Charlie 13, in both the physical world and Box 113, that helped me figure out what was happening," the patchwork monster noted, then wiggled her reptilian arm. "My own repairs here are a good example of you guys doing things differently. All the creatures I've looked at that have the type energy stuff that everything here has uses it to basically define what they are and how they function, with creatures that have it being able to manipulate that to some extent. A lot of the things you got me work to either make something not native to a pokemon be seen as part of them, or to modify what the energy of that pokemon does to make it work differently."

"And digimon don't do that?" the Chansey shaped pokemon asked uncertainly. "I was fairly sure your code did most of that on its own."

"Its the control you guys have over it that matters," Tyra said with a wide smile. "The metaphysical stuff and other things that have a way they usually work, but will work differently just fine if they are attempted to be used differently." She pointed at the image of how the Scyther currently looked. "His body fed typed energy into a simple digital construct to try and fix things. This caused it to regrow because the digital portion doesn't have anything to stop it from trying to do so, while the energy itself carried the information on how to create it to fit the rest of him." The image shifted back to the version during the incident. "From what I can tell his new fire powers aren't actually even the remains of this whole mess either."

"They're not?" Delta 2 asked, interested in the odd outlook.

"No, or at least they are only based on what he remembers of the events. The code itself that's giving him these powers doesn't match the corruption data recovered at all." A pair of code examples appeared side by side on the monitor. "It does on the other hand look a lot like code found in some natural Fire types, which helped narrow down that ability issue." The digimon cautiously created a small ball of flame over her reptilian claw. "It is a change that he produced in himself based on the metaphysical impact of the events, instead of a side effect of the events themselves."

"That's, worrying actually," the Administrator said nervously. "We don't make unspecified digital worlds specifically to avoid that kind of issue." With a deep frown she looked up at the digimon's altered form. "Is there anything we can do to reduce the chances of that? I can think of a lot of ways a pokemon can hurt themselves long term if they can make those kinds of changes to themselves."

"I think I can actually," Tyra said confidently. "And at the same time it would let me work on my old projects to alter digital life forms, and also repair any injuries that happen of this kind in the future." She then rubbed her head behind an ear sheepishly. "But, a side effect is that we might need to compromise a bit more often with adding in some new capabilities. From what I've seen these changes actually helped a lot to restore full functionality to the otherwise too primitive digital portions of their bodies."

"We were already willing to let minor cases happen. I'd much rather have more of them instead of lost limbs or uncontrolled changes," Delta 2 said firmly, but with a smile. "Thank you for working on this one."

TyranoGazimon blinked at the statement, entirely surprised. "You mean that," she said with wonder, and tears began to form in her eyes. "You, you really think my work will help and want me to keep going."

"I do," the Porygon replied honestly. "This is something to be proud of."


	63. 3-0D HardWare Support

\--- HardWare Support ---

"Jack, actually managing to call?" Shawn said happily at the sight of his former rival, taking note that the Investigator's Assistant was in his pokemon form and accompanied by his entire team.

"Yeah, managed to get something like down time, and heard you ran into another villain team again?" the Decidueye questioned, with Strangle next to him giving a glare.

"Technically the local Team Plasma leader's kids showed up here," Serperior corrected. "Although from what I've heard the main group back in Unova is saying he's fully unrelated and stole the programs from them."

"Did this really have an entire family end up turned into pokemon?" the female snake pokemon asked entirely unimpressed. "We have barely even been gone."

"It ended with one guy who hates humanity turned for good, and his ex-wife and two kids deciding to go back and forth," Gazimon said a bit distractedly. "Did you know actors in this region are also pokemon?"

"'Also pokemon' like I'm also a pokemon, or how some of the pokemon they use are effectively actors?" Jack asked with a sigh. "Why am I even asking at this point. Please at least tell me that you didn't end up sending an entire family into the film industry?"

"Only the one of them that was already interested. His sister also found out she wanted to be a Charizard as much as she wanted to be a trainer, and their mom is apparently causing the rest of their home town to have to deal with her being a pokemon most of the time," Shawn said simply. "It was a big mess for us, and honestly the worst parts didn't even have anything important to do with Plasma."

"I dunno, the girl seemed a lot happier with being able to turn into a pokemon, and maybe was a bit excited to have an excuse to beat up the pokemon that messed with her as a kid," Gazimon said with a laugh.

"She did seem a lot happier than the other Charmeleon while they were training," Serperior agreed, then turned back to his sister. "So, what went wrong that caused a ghost-bird to call us?"

"That can wait until you explain the mom part," the other snake pokemon said with a deep frown. "You guys aren't upsetting the common distinctions between human and pokemon across the entire region, right?"

"Janice's original home town is entirely made of pokemon, so I think the Lucario owned town is a bit more of a concern than one Venusaur having to explain that she owns her house and used to be human," Shawn said, strangely earning a groan from everyone on the other side of the call.

"You found a town of Lucario too?" Jack complained. "That's the answer by the way, I'm in a town like that, so to make translations easier I'm just staying like this."

"I'm pretty sure we already knew she was from a place like this," Crusher noted from behind him. "Although I was thinking she was from another world too. How did that end up being in this world?"

"Ancient teleportation pad that we're bringing back up to par," Gazimon complained. "Which is apparently my job now because I have the Dark Network that make it easier from a distance." He looked at the other digimon. "Good news is that I've finished training the HardWares in how to do some support for me, so I have some subordinates now to make that a bit less of a hassle."

\---

Light-326 looked over its small console a bit nervously. This was the first real day that it and the rest of the HardWare-Lights were working to support the many digital worlds created by Upload's rampage across the region. Administrator Gazimon had given them some old guides from when he had worked on the Dark Network, and had spent quite a bit of time training them on those.

So far it was really boring.

Gazimon had even warned them about that, and had even gone out of his way to find files to read and simple games to play. The specific ones he noted both didn't fully take your focus away from the task, and also entertained you while doing it effectively. Knowing that he had learned as a matter of life and death which of the many documents and programs inside the once evil system fit into that tight category, 326's opinion on the matter was that what should have been a rather jovial explanation felt a bit too grim.

Which apparently did not translate to its idea to not use either of those options being at all a good idea. It had been tasked with passive monitoring of three different worlds that had been targeted, two of which were apparently abandoned attempts to setup hidden bases by the criminals. Those were both basically empty spaces with some devices inside that performed the tasks that the original non-incarnated system had done, and were as a result being left alone for the time being. 326's main job there was just to make sure nobody actually went into the worlds.

The third world was a target that was hit, and a bit harder to check for access due to the presence of some simple life forms that mostly just sorted items. Those were inferior in nature to the DSS Warehouse creatures, but it seemed they were still capable of keeping that storage system functioning. The company that owned the place wanted to do things on their own mostly, and as a result only wanted to have things monitored for authorized accesses. Sadly this was only more interesting to check due to the need to verify that all the creatures inside were supposed to be there, and that there had not been any unexpected changes.

"326, it isn't going to magically get more interesting just because Gazimon isn't holding our claws anymore," Light-118 sighed at its expression. The other digital life form currently double checking her own much more interesting set of two digital worlds, both of which were natural worlds that had been determined to be sites Upload had considered for use. Naturally formed data transfer locations on these worlds made it much more common for simple digital life forms that had previously only been rarely seen to be actively investigated, and as a consequence she was much less in need of finding interesting things to do.

"You at least have wild animals to watch, 118," it complained. "I have storage security, which means I need to figure this stuff out without paying too close of attention."

"And that means you 'at least' have stuff that people actually care about staying safe," she replied with friendly criticism. "I'm doing a job that a few cameras could manage just fine."

"But you have things you can do that are part of the job. I don't want to just goof off all day," Light-326 sighed. "It doesn't feel right. Especially with what happened to the other Gazimon that got caught trying to do it."

"I'm fairly sure the boss wouldn't have outright told us about these things if he didn't want us using them when things get boring," Larry said, clearly only responding to get them to be quiet while he played one of the games.

"Larry, how long have you been on that one?" 118 questioned, eyeing the other circuitry dinosaur. Larry was one of the very few HardWare-Lights that had chosen a typical name instead of a number to use. "You are at least checking on your worlds every few minutes right?" The other digital life form huffed and simply turned back to his game in response. "I hope that he gets moved to ones as unimportant as mine," she then complained to 326.

"I think Gazimon moved him to the empty systems that are at DSS now anyway," it replied quietly. "I'm not sure Larry was told though."

\---

"You found a town in another world," Jack asked, emphasizing the word 'another'. "A not digital one this time, and somehow that ended up with it joining our region?"

"Apparently it is all Metagross' fault," Shawn corrected just as annoyed. "So far the big thing going on is them sending people over for eye exams and glasses, and the movie studio getting help with illusion crafting and items from another world."

"The movie studio that turns human actors into pokemon actors," Strangle noted unhappily.

"And pokemon actors into human actors, with the kid starting off like he'd be the first category only to end up in the second," her brother confirmed. "Somehow he got a spot in some action-comedy that was having problems."

"I think I heard about that one from a, um I guess now it would be another, Ghost type that had tried out being the right hand mon of the villain," Vibration the Flygon noted. "Apparently the big speech was too funny to make it through. She seemed pretty sure that no Ghost could manage the part."

"How are you handling that anyway?" Gazimon asked with genuine curiosity.

Both the Flygon and the Decidueye groaned at the question. "Its terrible, we keep forgetting that walls or floors we can't see are there," Vibration said with a sigh. "And the few other Ghost types we've met lately keep asking us about when we died."

"I'm fairly sure that is just some joke we don't think is funny, mostly because the one we actually told the whole story to apologized to us for it," Jack continued unhappily. "The wall thing is a more common issue overall, and from what I've heard that's only going to end up the other way around eventually, with us forgetting that everyone can't go through walls."

"I think that you might also need to worry about how you think about plants too," Shawn noted after a moment. "Although I think it has been getting a bit worse lately for me, since I merged into Basirablemon with Serp."

"I've been a bit more sensitive since I digi-evolved too," said serpent agreed cautiously, then looked at the confused faces on the other side of the call. "We haven't explained the complications with using that one effectively yet have we?"

"No, you haven't," Crusher said while the others simply stared. "How did you two end up mixed together?"

"It wasn't mixed, they each had their own head at either end of the giant poison root," Gazimon said with a bit of a laugh. "I don't think you guys have tried again yet, have you?"

"I've done some practice with the Poison type transformation," Shawn admitted unhappily. "It turns me into a Serperior when I use it, but makes the bigger change easier," he said to his former rival.

"I am now the last person to tell you that turning into a pokemon is weird," Jack complained with a sigh. "I wish we were further along with things, but Salamence ended up panicked about the whole LAS origin issue you found out about, Roberts is stuck mostly keeping Adrian in line, and I'm being sent on temporary issues that just happen to require a good pokemon translator. Which ended up being a lot less Crusher having things to do, and a lot more of me being a bird."

"I'm a lot more upset with that than I expected," his digimon teammate agreed unhappily. "Surprising people with being able to talk is too fun to have him get to be the only one to do it, and of all of us I have the least other stuff to do."

"Keeping two Ghosts that don't know what they are doing from causing problems is not a fun job," Smile the Gourgeist complained. "The worst part is that they still don't see that they've started to enjoy messing with people."

"Jack's messing with people?" Shawn and Serperior asked with ill intent.

"I doubt they will get as bad as you two," Strangle sighed. "But they are more playful, particularly when they are actually trying to learn to use the new stuff."

They were then interrupted by Gazimon letting out a yelp.

\---

Light-326 noticed the subtle change to one of the two mostly unused worlds, a small transfer from properly authorized systems that had not happened before in the place, just moments before it became a massive and obvious change as a whole pile of pokeballs suddenly started to flow in from the owner's location.

It quickly responded, with the first intended step in this case being to outright call the site in question as soon as possible. The HardWare-Lights had a voice only line for emergency work, and in cases where getting one of the Troubleshooters informed would take too long they were allowed to use it.

"Muk Majesty? This is Light-326 with Digital Storage Solutions," it said as it heard someone pick up on the other end. "Sorry for the lack of image right now, but I am seeing a large number of pokeballs entering the digital world we are monitoring at your site. Is this an authorized event, and do you need any assistance?"

"DSS?" a man on the other side coughed. "We have something of an outbreak and are trying to quarantine. A problem with our younger Venusaur, is there any way to get the rest of us out of the facility too?" he managed with a couple of stops to cough again.

"I'm contacting medical and I will see if I can get some transportation to you," the digital dinosaur quickly replied, while it also sent the notes it had taken so far to both Janice and Delta 2. "It looks like I can get a portal up, but if you need to keep things in the air from going with you that isn't a good option."

Off to the side 326 saw Light-118 take over its other two sites, which was good because this was an actual issue and he didn't want Larry to be the one to do so. "HardWare-Light 326, I have approval for direct transfers," Metagross said over communications, unheard by the other side of the call. "TyranoGazimon is ready for on site aid, and Delta 2 is getting 201 prepared for anything."

"Letting the air through won't work," the guy said, still sounding bad. "She let out all these seeds and pollen for some reason."

"We have better transportation available now, I will be using the video for targeting help," 326 said quickly. "How many people need to get out?"

"Seven, we're finishing the pokemon now," the guy on the other end replied with considerable relief. The digital life form turned on the image it was receiving from the phone call, revealing an area choked with spores and coated with good sized seeds that could barely be seen from all the contamination. The man himself had scaly patches on his skin that reminded the circuitry dinosaur of the file images it had seen of the effects of a corruption attack, and made it quickly send an image capture of the call to Delta 2 with a note of the similarity.

"Are there any humans that are not afflicted that need to be sent to a different location?" Light-326 asked attempting to keep its voice level at the sight.

"Nobody that isn't outside where the air is clean," the man replied, then coughed again. "If we can get everyone that affected out we can manage to clean it out inside too."

\---

"Janice says the problem is being handled," Gazimon told everyone. "And is throwing something I said back at me over wanting to end this break early to check on it myself."

"We have the extra staff for it now actually," Shawn said still standing close to the doorway.

"Really? I'd think without me and Roberts you'd be a lot shorter than normal," Jack said looking at his team considerately. "We did add another two teams."

"Grant had barely been with us at all when you arrived," Serperior noted. "Upload was actually the first issue they got to help us with, and before that it was literally just me, Shawn, Janice, and A-0."

"What about Metagross, or Metang at the time?" the avian trainer asked.

"Their first day was actually when we found Gazimon," Shawn informed his former rival. "Which was still just a few months ago now. Compared to years without anyone else I'm actually tripping over help." He then nervously looked away. "However, its also a lot more human interaction than normal. Well, they started out human at least."

"I've met two other people who can say that about themselves already since we parted ways," Jack complained. "Not counting Ghosts that were originally human that we don't know about."

"Yeah, that sounds like Janice is right about it being something that happens to us because we're like that," Gazimon said, a frown still on his face because of the ongoing issue. "Did they have these kind of stories too?"

"I did not ask them, and they did not ask me," the trainer replied strongly. "Which I really hope isn't why most people haven't heard about this kind of thing."

"Hopefully not though," Smile said with a sigh. "Because that has bad implications with my own former humanity and how widespread it is for us Ghosts to be former humans."

"Alright, that's enough talk of such things," Strangle cut in with notable exasperation. "Let's go for a happier topic." She paused in thought. "I'm getting along with Jack better, although not too happy to help him with Grass type moves."

"That is not a happier topic," her brother complained. "Shawn has proven to want to be able to fight like a pokemon despite how he wants to look like a human."

"Having a recently transformed guy who was ranting about the superiority of pokemon look right at you and assume you're not human does not help my mood about that," the guy who mostly counted as an additional brother to her added unhappily.

\---

"Delta 2, please tell me you have some info on what I'm looking at here," TyranoGazimon said while inspecting the discolored and scaly patches of skin on the seven humans in the rather simplistic digital world.

"I've managed to identify the issue from the pokemon that were sent over," the medical Administrator replied over the communication line. "It is a rare illness for the Venusaur line, with that stage of evolution in particular being the worst case for it. Good news is that it doesn't make anyone affected contagious to others, but the bad news is that we need to get straight to work on this now. It can be dangerous, even deadly, without treatment."

"We tried to return her when we realized something was wrong," the woman Tyra was looking over said miserably. "But her ball didn't work."

"That actually confirms it, energy restriction to that degree is one of the effects it has on the originator. Part of the overall issue is that makes them less able to control how toxic the pollen they kick up while its going on is," Delta 2 remarked sadly. "The other part of it is the immediate problem. Good news there is we have some time to go through the other pokemon, their balls have all been placed into a minor stasis system until we have time to get to them. Bad news is that once Tyra finishes her scans we need to get all of you over here for medical treatment."

"We have a bulb growing out of this guys back," the digimon said quietly, pointing to another of the victims. All of them tensed up at the statement.

"Send him now," the Porygon-2 said bluntly. "Keep an eye on the others. That is the biggest issue right now. This problem is possibly the Venusaur returning to an earlier form temporarily, with the speculation being that Bulbasaur were once more like Paras in nature than part plant by default."

"Ah, that kind of thing," Tyra said unhappily, then switched some settings on her scanner. "I'll keep an eye out for it on the others."

\---

Light-326 was rather upset with things overall, as it turned out to its great dismay that the job could somehow still end up boring despite a problem going on inside one of his target digital worlds. There was some anxiety over if things would turn out alright, but the Box medical support staff was handling all of that on their own. Which meant that the digital life form was basically left just managing the transport events and monitoring its three sites.

"What's with the frown High Number?" Larry joked at its expense.

"Three-Twenty-Six is a perfectly fine designation," it replied harshly. "Do you really not have anything better to do?"

"He doesn't, his sites are empty and he has monitoring programs setup to warn him," Light-58 said from just past Larry.

"Fifty-eight," Larry hissed at the other digital monster. "I told you to be quiet about it."

326 sighed and went back to checking on the sites, which quickly revealed that nothing had actually changed, and that the site with an issue had been successfully cleared of humans. It made a note to have someone with data analysis skills go to the site to make sure whatever the problem was didn't spread to the incarnated equipment there, but that was a long term issue. The only thing left to do immediately was to prepare to send all of the humans and pokemon back when Delta 2 was done, but given the extent of the issue the Troubleshooters themselves would likely take over for that.

Which meant that not only had it turned out to be a boring problem overall, but one that was effectively over.

"I am going to look over the documentation on this medical issue," it said disappointedly. "That is at least technically on topic," it continued to try and justify the descision to itself.

\---

"This is just a corruption case isn't it?" TyranoGazimon asked annoyed from a good distance away from their current group of patients.

"Similar effects but a much different cause," Delta 2 replied. "Although I guess I need to send you the file of the last of this kind of problem we had to help with. Maybe from your own research it looks more like that than I've been thinking of it."

"The difference in cause is definitely less than you are thinking," the digimon criticized. "I can actually draw quite a few direct parallels between what these seeds are doing and what an Analyzer does to its target." She used her scanner to send a file of her initial results to the Administrator. "I've already implemented some of the energy recovery methods we made for that issue on one of them, and it seems to be the same idea as one of the normal treatments only easier to setup."

"I've admittedly been doing much the same," the Chansey shaped Porygon-2 noted. "Actually, those methods are originally made from the ones I already had for this kind of known issue in the first place."

"So the minor physical changes are fairly normal for this kind of thing?" Tyra questioned. "Like the patchy skin and the small leaves these guys ended up with?"

"Ugh, yes, those changes do seem to be more of the body's own reaction to the infection instead of a direct result of the illness itself," the Administrator confirmed. "Like how a fever is the body actually trying to burn out an infection, although in these cases it is closer to the body attempting to trick the contaminant into thinking it has already spread to other areas. It is easier to see that in corruption cases, where the rate of digital conversion drops like a rock after the pokemon's body is altered in this way."

"Up until it hits the point where it is close enough for the infection to match up enough to just take over everything," the patchwork digimon said uneasily, her reptilian claw scraping across a patch of scales. "Which is the point where this current issue either makes the target into a Grass type, with a high chance of also being Poison type, or just kills them from overloading their systems."

"I can definitely stop the latter from happening," Delta 2 said firmly. "Unfortunately, by causing the former to happen more easily if it gets that bad. The good news is we still have three more days before it should get anywhere near that bad."

"When do we tell them about that part?" Tyra nervously asked.

"When it is necessary to do so. All of the humans are safe now, and the pokemon are looking alright so far," the Administrator said with some relief. "So after everyone is safe we let them know about the risk going forward, and see if we can help them setup some support if it happens again."


	64. 4-00 News

Act 4, The Digidestined

\--- News ---

Janice looked rather grim about whatever she was looking at on her monitor. This was easily noticed, as things had been fairly stable for over two weeks now. The last big thing was the medical issue the HardWare team found. Which had been handled quickly and effectively with minimal input from the core team, and everyone was basically just relaxing as they managed day to day issues.

"Well then," the team lead said unhappily. "I have good news and bad news." She turned to look at Gazimon, who was sitting with his team at the modified Dark Network console puttering at improvements to the system.

"Bad news first," the digimon complained at the obvious hint that it was news for him. Quagsire and her own team looking minorly relieved to not be the target.

Janice seemed to take a moment to consider the request, frowning deeper as that time passed. "I think what part is good and what is bad depends on the order I say it," she said unhappily.

"Then tell it the way that makes it sound least bad," Kabutops suggested with some confusion.

"Well. First off, we've located your digital world," Janice said simply.

"Tyranomon would probably be happier about that than me, so the bad news is definitely pretty bad," the rabbit monster noted cautiously, while everyone tensed at what the bad side of this revelation could be.

"We've also found where Team Upload went," the team lead said gravely. The room went silent at the clear connection. "The whole story is that Giratina was willing to help when Charlie 13 asked about our efforts to search for both of those using the traces we had. From the remains of the Dark Network's arrival and the portal in the Hackware world, he was able to to determine that the targets had the same destination." She brought up two different complex patterns on one of the monitors, both clearly related to each other. "From there he had the idea to check the scan of the evolutionary Polyhedrons to try and see where they got their data, and Charlie 13 also suggested the scans Metagross was able to make of Floramon in my parents' world. That was all together enough for us to get a lock." An even more complex pattern, clearly identifiable as the core part of a transport program to those who had worked with them, replaced the two partial ones with clear components from both.

"Call Delta 2 for Tyra and get Tyranomon out," Shawn said firmly as soon as she finished speaking. "We need intel on how bad this could be."

"Bad, but maybe not for the reason you're thinking," Gazimon said next to him, shaking his head sadly. "Datamon wasn't just 'not the strongest' of the dark powers around last we knew, he was so weak that another was already using him as an unwilling piece of equipment. If Upload had to run from him, I don't want to think about what whoever is still there would do after they captured them." The digimon sounded like he had thought about the possibility before. "I was worried enough with just the chance that Datamon tried going back with them, and that would have at least given them someone who knew what the dark powers were."

Everyone frowned at this statement, with Quagsire moving over to the transport pad to send her digimon teammate to Box 201, where he would fit to join the conversation. They all then informed the medical Box of the conversation so far.

"How easy is it to get there and back?" A-0 asked darkly, focused on the pattern. "Or is that still being figured out?"

"Getting there is easy enough for us," Janice answered. "Getting back is a bigger issue. The, distance isn't the right word but its close enough, between here and there is too far to grab someone from over on the other side without some targeting. Which means that we would need to send both Metagross and you, or send Gazimon and have him setup a Dark Network Node for us to link to."

"If any of the original Dark Network remains we should be able to take that over," TyranoGazimon noted uncertainly. "Can you even scan for that from here, or are you saying we need Gazi looking for this world to get him back?"

"It is gone," Metagross noted. "All scans of target world show no Dark Network presence. However, a similar data system seems to be in place now. We cannot connect to it, and it does not seem safe to try intensive scans on it."

"Shawn and Serperior are our strongest combatants," Tyranomon rumbled. "Gazimon is on their team. They have the best chance of surviving any 'Dark Masters' that are active where they arrive." The dinosaur digimon looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. "Will they appear right on top of Team Upload, or will there need to be a search?"

"It is 'far' enough away that we can't even guarantee that anyone we send will get there after Upload arrives. Giratina says that time doesn't pass the same for universes this removed from each other without a solid link," Janice answered. "Which is another reason Gazimon setting up a Node we can connect to is the best option. Not to mention something to do as soon as possible."

"Worst case we get in and get Upload back out of that mess as quickly as possible?" Shawn asked uneasily. "Assuming that they are even there when we arrive."

"The timeframe can be narrowed down if you give me a couple of days to home in on the target," Giratina cut in, his long serpentine form slipping into Delta 2's Box. "That should also give you some time to prepare for such a trip yourself."

"I'm guessing that you cannot help us with getting there and back?" Janice asked clearly looking to confirm something she suspected.

"I can aid in finding the site, maybe take things myself, but quite honestly it isn't the intended use of my powers. Your setup is quite a bit better at doing such a thing than my own options," the Ghost/Dragon rumbled happily. "In fact I'd just end up asking you for help with doing such a thing at this point anyway, so really you're already pretty well set."

"Right, a couple of days gives us the time to get things setup, and prepare some supplies," Shawn said standing up. "Serp, let's go check our old travel gear and see what needs replacing."

"Don't worry too much about cost," Janice told him firmly. "I can easily swing this one, especially given we know that Ultimates are more common in this other world, and that at least one of those 'Dark Masters' has attempted an invasion of another world."

\---

The first trip to the store ended up being to replace the bag and other camping equipment that Shawn had not used since his own League run. The once fairly advanced storage satchel was quite outdated by this point, and inspection had revealed that two of the six energy storage pouches inside had begun to leak in a way that would possibly damage items placed inside of them. Luckily the trainer had not been using the bag to store things most of the time, with a smaller day to day bag he had purchased for the shorter excursions to Boxes being enough for his work during the five years he had been at DSS. These containers were incredibly common, and even the cheapest new one they could find now had a 20% larger storage space per pouch than either of his older models.

His tent, along with its own storage case, was also in poor shape. It had ended up used in some of the Boxes as temporary housing for some unusual situations from time to time over his employment. Replacements for this went far less nicely, as it had been top of the line when he had gotten it and a number of the environmental comfort features that had made it worthwhile in the Boxes were still premium features that added considerably to the cost. "Gazi, how likely will we need to go straight from a glacier to a desert?" Shawn asked as they worked out this particular issue.

"We might," the digimon hedged, noting that neither Shawn nor the cashier found such a thing odd. "It isn't entirely likely, but the maps I've got might not be entirely accurate anymore."

"Ah, time travel," the worker said with a nod, having arrived at that conclusion without any hint of such a thing from them. "Giratina brought a request from his sibling that you two need to help with?" he asked fishing for details.

"Alternate universe that doesn't necessarily have the same time pass as it does here," Serperior corrected mildly annoyed. "We're hoping to fix that issue when we get there, but we need to prepare for a long time without any access to civilization."

"Hmm, how long can you guys wait for stuff?" the clerk asked thoughtfully at this clarification. "In a couple of days I might be able to arrange for some more dedicated exploration gear that isn't normally stocked. A larger, lighter bag than that one," he noted pointing to the one they had selected, but not yet purchased. "A multi-environment tent with some special storm proofing gear to deal with extreme weather, and some similar clothing options."

"And for those of us who don't typically wear clothing?" Serperior questioned.

"We already have plans to get that stuff, Serp. Not to mention the pokeballs," Shawn noted to his Starter. "Which reminds me. Gazimon, what kinds of creatures are the other digimon chosen ones you knew about?"

Gazimon blinked with some confusion at the shift in topic. "Uh, it was a mix of things. Biyomon obviously, along with Agumon, Gabumon, Tentomon, Palmon, Gomamon, and Patamon," he listed to start. "You've seen the first one, a bird digimon. The next two are both reptile digimon, but Gabumon wears this fur coat and turns into a wolf digimon. Tentomon is a big beetle digimon." Gazimon held his arms out to demonstrate the size.

"Uh, that's fairly normal sized for beetles," the clerk noted, making the digimon blink.

"Okay, a beetle digimon then. Palmon is a plant monster, Gomamon is a seal/dog thing, and Patamon is this small wing eared hamster thing," the rabbit monster continued. "Or at least those are the animals from the Digidestined's world that I think look the closest to them."

"What is a hamster?" Shawn and Serperior both asked.

"About this big, fuzzy, not quite a mouse, somewhat chubby," Gazimon said with a sigh. "Your bugs are normally that size, but you don't have hamsters." The clerk then quietly noted he knew what a hamster was, making the digimon feel slightly better.

"The plant one is going to be easy enough, we can easily just pack some extra things," Serperior noted with a look at the shelf labeled to have such products.

"The hardest one to get care products for is probably that 'Gabumon', as I don't think fur coats are the kind of thing we plan on battle hardening," Shawn noted.

"I have a couple products for that kind of thing that are here for martial artists that go to Flameheart," the Clerk contributed. "Not sure if they are quite up for monster combat though. Maybe just canine products would work?"

"We'd probably get some for the seal too, so that should work," Serperior agreed. "Bug care stuff is a bit harder for us, I don't think that stuff works quite the same, and we've mostly had Administrators handle those for us."

"So, we're getting extra stuff for the kids' digimon?" Gazimon asked just to confirm, getting firm nods in response from his teammates. "Let's go all out then. I know a bunch of digimon villages, and some basic trade goods could get us a long way, or help out a lot with any major threats that are around."

\---

"We have confirmation from management that this is a major issue," Janice said to the remaining Troubleshooter team while Shawn's group was off shopping. She had been in the process of going over a number of documents recovered from the Dark Network. "More because of the threat of any of these Ultimate digimon with goals of conquest following Upload's route back to here than to deal with the thieves themselves."

"That's probably the right way of looking at things," Tyra complained. "I doubt that the Hackware is going to bother coming back here if they don't have someone else making them, even with the entire digital world for resources." She sounded slightly sarcastic.

"Records from their sites indicated that managing digital world activities was a massive drain on their mental resources," one of the HardWare-Lights said from another monitor, sounding sympathetic to those in the records. "It is a reason they limited the number of sites they setup inside of systems they did not raid, they felt keeping everything working was too much effort for not enough reward."

"I thought Gazimon gave you guys an entire list of games and reading material to keep thing interesting?" Quagsire asked with a smirk. "Do digital monsters go through that stuff faster?"

"326 doesn't like to use them," another of them shouted from off screen, earning a "Shut up Larry" in reply.

"Anyway," Janice cut in to get the group back on topic. "We are being allowed a lot of leeway here, depending on what we find in the digimon world. Anywhere from simply being allowed to investigate as much as we can in our free time, all the way to calling the League to request Champions to come and help us." Everyone quieted down at this clarification. At this point even the digimon had a fairly clear idea of how serious that kind of situation was.

"How many Ultimate digimon would that allow us to defeat?" Tyranomon questioned unhappily. "Because I know from Gazimon's records that those Tag and Crest items that Etemon was concerned with the Digidestined getting allowed all seven of them to reach that stage."

"I'd say each Champ we could get would likely be able to handle being in a one on one fight," the Team Lead answered. "We could probably in the worst case get six of them. If Basirablemon is any indication then that should be a good enough amount to at least evacuate survivors."

"I'd greatly prefer things if that word isn't needed," Tyra said unhappily. "Because I've had enough of being the closest we got to 'survivors', I don't want to be one of the last real digimon anywhere."

"I fully agree with that one," Tyranomon rumbled. "But we still need to be ready for it. Floramon was sure that the Dark Masters were winning, and the Digidestined had left for their own world."

"They managed to beat Etemon," the patchwork digimon argued without much belief.

"And it only took the loss of one of them," the dinosaur noted, although he sounded unsure. "Although, Floramon also said that she had heard the Greymon made it to the human world with the others."

"I'm sorry to say it doesn't mean we have them on hand right now, but in an emergency we have a line to them," Janice said to clarify. "The time issue is another problem. Until Gazi gets a Node up and running we can't be sure how much time has passed for them."

"I'm preparing custom medical supplies and digimon compatible, police style pokeballs with them," Delta 2 added tiredly. "Things that will help them if they run into any digimon issues that they need to deal with without me."

\---

Six days felt far too long to get everything ready, even though it had taken well over a month just to find where Upload had gone and they were still going to possibly arrive before the criminals. Gazimon and the other digimon were still intimidated by how the massive pile of equipment both came out of the new bag for inspection, and then went back into the container small enough to easily carry on the move. In the end they decided on a larger professional hiking pack, with places to strap smaller bags and items that could not be safely stored, along with two smaller bags that were safe for pokemon to carry inside of their pokeballs.

"I'm still mad we couldn't get everything pokeball safe," Shawn complained as he hefted the main pack. "I'd feel much better if I could use my ball too without possibly losing stuff."

"Quality environmental control systems and sleeping bags both don't store well," Janice noted jokingly. "Although I admit that was another reason I never went on a League run."

"As a Starter or a Trainer?" Quagsire asked with a sigh. "Because having gone from the first to the second I have to say finding out that is an issue is worse when you are already used to using your pokeball."

"Actually mostly as a Starter. I am a person and have stuff that's mine, I wasn't about to just have my trainer carry it all," the Team Lead said.

They laughed nervously at the joke, all of them looking at the modifications made to the transport pad to help with this plan. Giratina was on standby to try and assist in the process, and Janice's family had helped with using attempts to target their home universe as practice. Four Dark Network Nodes, all determined to be perfectly safe to store, were distributed among the packs. Two in Shawn's possession, one in the main pack, and another in a smaller pokeball safe bag he had emergency supplies stored inside, along with one each in the others' bags.

"Right, are we all ready?" Shawn asked calmly.

"We are," A-0 confirmed seriously. The Porygon-2 looked a bit more complex that was usual for it, apparently in order to allow for more programs and functions to be active at once. "I will be able to handle the Dark Network until Gazimon is in contact with us again."

"We can't really prepare any more than this," Janice noted unhappily. "The Boxes and digital worlds just aren't strong enough for you to really cut loose in your Ultimate form right now, and getting any of them up to that point would delay this months."

"The local Officer Jenny will kill all of us if we even think about trying to practice somewhere that normal people can see us, which covers this entire planet and probably Janice's homeworld too," Quagsire agreed. "So maybe you can spend some time in the digimon world doing that when you get there."

"Are we going inside pokeballs, or ready for a fight?" Gazimon asked, the difference having been a debate over the preparation period.

"Energy requirements for sending three individuals without targeting data or a stable connection is too high," Metagross sadly noted. "Arrival destination cannot be made singular if done separately."

"So in the balls to keep from having to find each other when we land, got it," Serperior joked with a sigh, before he returned himself. Soon after Gazimon joined him and Shawn stepped onto the pad.

"Ready," the red eyed trainer said with a nod to all of them.

"Good luck," the rest of the team replied seriously, and then watched as he disappeared with a flash of light.

\---

"Huh, looks a lot more normal than I expected," Shawn commented looking out over the forested area under the hill they had appeared on top of. "Sure this is the right place?"

"Just because your digital worlds are so primitive doesn't mean all of them have to look blocky," Gazimon complained, and turned the pair of binoculars he had retrieved from his own pack to look at the small village they could just make out in a nearby clearing. "But yeah, this is my homeworld."

"The architecture is interesting," Serperior noted uncertainly, his arm pointed at a large black obelisk standing just outside the boundary of the town. The dark tower looked fairly new with the clear remains of its construction littering the ground around it.

"Never seen anything like that before," the rabbit monster nervously admitted. "Hopefully it isn't a bad sign."


	65. 4-01 Control Spire

\--- Control Spire ---

The forest was full of discarded telephone poles in addition to regular trees. Gazimon was rather upset that neither of his teammates actually seemed to have noticed. "Is this really normal to you guys?" he had to ask after passing the eighth smooth pole with metal hooks to allow easy climbing access.

"They're fruit trees," Serperior said with a hint of confusion. "Honestly it is a fairly neat solution to this kind of thing."

"Although I don't think I've seen conifer fruit trees in quite some time," Shawn noted, his half distracted tone reminding the rabbit digimon that his teammates were magical green thumbs.

"I don't even know why I'm actually surprised," Gazimon complained, absentmindedly opening a pane to re-check their overall situation. "Interference is getting stronger. Hate to say it, but the tower is probably the cause. We might need to get into the guts of that thing to set up a Node properly."

"We brought four of the things," Serperior noted unhappily. "Won't that help some?"

"I can scrap one or two of them for parts to build some sort of amplifier gear if we get desperate," the digimon sighed, and shifted the data on the black construct. "But with any luck all we need to do is take down the interference and we can just set up one and get contact back."

"Well, I hope this town is willing to answer some questions about it," Shawn said calmly. "Any idea what kind of creatures live here?"

"Bearmon if my long range scans are accurate," Gazimon answered easily, then paused in place as he realized what he just said. "Can you get out the Pokedex, because I've only ever seen them on that and two seconds ago I didn't actually realize I had long range scans."

Shawn casually took out the small computer. "They look like," he started, and then trailed off. "They look like bears wearing hats that got in a fight with a pile of belts, and they lost."

Gazimon looked at the belts along his own tail with consideration. "Is there a problem with belts?" he asked in a tone that demanded an answer of 'No'.

Responding to this inquiry was interrupted by the group exiting the woods at the edge of the town, now able to see the buildings and inhabitants clearly. The black furred bear monsters seemed to be moving stiffly and all seemed to react at once when the first of them spotted the Troubleshooters. Shawn and Serperior instantly reacted, preparing for battle and inspecting the digimon for anything unusual.

Gazimon had a bit of a different reaction. "It isn't standard Dark Network code, but it’s closer than I'd like," he said with a deep frown as he looked at the obviously mind controlled digimon, with a stance that clearly stated that he was ready to run from the possible fight. Despite the return to the digimon world causing this minor reversion to a more timid nature, when the townsfolk charged angrily at them he met the charge. "Guys, can we maybe find what's controlling them?"

"Maybe if digimon didn't end up messes of belts I could figure out what part of this wardrobe disaster is out of place," Serperior complained, vines and tree roots suddenly lashing out to tie down the entire crowd of Bearmon in a quick motion. "So, Shawn, what is the extra thing these guys have that the little file picture we have doesn't?"

Shawn easily moved between the struggling bodies, looking carefully at each of the digimon. "The collars. Thick, metal of some kind, with glowing red bits," the trainer said coldly, just before he slashed through one of said items with a flash of glowing green energy. Immediately the bear stopped struggling and began to blink his now blue colored eyes. "Isn't in the image and looks like it was part of the tower."

"You do know that these clothes we have are kind of part of our bodies, right?" Gazimon questioned casually, although he still started to slash through the indicated items on the closest few Bearmon to him. "Breaking things that are actually ours can injure, even cripple digimon."

"Yeah, yeah, seen that before too. Digimon just seem to have a lot more of that sort of thing," Serperior continued complaining, quickly raising a swirl of leaves that cleanly cut through the majority of the controlled digimon's collars, leaving just a few behind for his teammates to deal with.

\---

"We really cannot thank you enough," the leader of the small village said to the Troubleshooters, glancing around at the still present vines and roots that Serperior was in the process of removing. "After the Emperor showed up and put up the Control Spire he used his Dark Rings to control all of us. He mostly left us alone after we finished building a couple of others nearby for him, but he didn't take them off us."

"Not like he wasn't just waiting for another thing to make us do," one of the others complained, likely in a way she thought was quiet enough, but the group of travelers all locked their gazes on her as soon as it was said.

"So what kind of digimon decided to go with that title?" Gazimon asked, while also turning to look at the black obelisk looming over the town.

"He's human," the leader said conspiratorially. "An evil Digidestined, using his great power to conquer this world after the others had left. Taking away the freedom that they gave us."

"The Digidestined won?" the rabbit monster asked with wonder, turning to face the eldest of the small bears. "I ended up stuck in another world, and I guess time doesn't quite line up," he told the local at the questioning look his inquiry produced. "Last time I was here Etemon was still fighting them." There was no response from them other than uneasy shifting.

"That's a long time ago now," the leader said uneasy with that fact. "It has been four years since the Digidestined left, and I don't even know how long it took them to win." He sighed heavily. "I do however know that it took the complete destruction of the digital world for them to do so, and it was only their victory that allowed the world to be remade afterwards."

"We have five digimon total that survived in the world we ended up in," Gazimon said somewhat faintly. "Four survivors from Etemon's forces, and a Floramon who was on the run from a pair of Cherrymon."

"We can let you know everything we do about what happened since then," the Bearmon leader said sadly. "You are here to see if things have gotten better then?"

"Honestly, we're here following a different problem," Serperior admitted. "We do know it is a different problem, right?"

"Initial scans show the tower as unrelated to Upload," Gazimon confirmed, and then scared the locals as he opened a pane to double check. "No traces of their Hackware style code or Porygon based methods. It does have some relation to the Dark Network, but I think this was made by someone who had worked with that from a distance rather than someone with direct access to Datamon's efforts."

"How, how are you doing that?" the leader asked fearfully. "I've never seen anything like that before."

"I'm the weird scary thing now?" the rabbit monster asked as he blinked in confusion. "Shawn, when did I get scary?"

"Gazi, I saw Tyra freak out when you stopped Crusher's attack," his trainer notes with amusement. "Apparently when you started being able to manhandle Monochromon."

This did not defuse the situation as well as the mostly-human had expected it to.

\---

"So, in summary, we are a mess," Serperior finished his team's brief explanation of who and what they were, specifically a brief review of what had happened to the bodies of the three of them. The currently molten reptile was getting a good amount of stares, while Shawn's own technical humanity had produced an even more confused reaction just earlier.

"Can we go back to being mind controlled by a Digidestined?" the female Bearmon asked tiredly. "Because I rather would not be around whatever madness comes from your world."

"Hey! Speak for yourself," another countered. "They saved us, even if they are monster aliens from another dimension!"

"That is technically what we just said," Shawn allowed cautiously. "Now, is there anything else we can do to help you guys out?"

"I must admit, I am not sure if we want you to try and destroy the Spire or not," the village leader said with matching uncertainty. "If it is still here and the Emperor returns then he can trivially take us over again, but if it is destroyed then he will know that we have been freed, and might come right back to conquer us again."

"Well, I have my own bad news on that front," Gazimon said, as he continued looking over his pane. "The black eyesore is the thing creating interference and keeping us from contacting our world." It took a moment for the Dark typed digimon to realize what he had meant by that. "Huh, I guess I'm really not from here anymore."

"I'd rather spend a few weeks trying to get out of range than bring danger down on them," Shawn noted. "However, we can also stick around for a while to help out if you are attacked again. I'm not sure if we can do anything long term, but it would give you some more time to prepare."

"Take it down," another of the local digimon then said calmly. "It only risks us, and I'd rather fight again then just lay down if he ever comes back." A murmur of agreement came from a section of the crowd.

"Before we take it down I want closer scans. Maybe, maybe, an attempt to hack the thing," Gazimon said at this small burst of enthusiasm. "I'm not even attempting that without a fair idea how it works, and I might just wait until it’s mostly destroyed to even try."

"Still scary to see you're able to do that," the female Bearmon said. "But I am glad it seems to be on our side."

"Then perhaps we should get started now, while it is early in the day," the leader suggested, and motioned for everyone to move towards the Spire.

As they approached Gazimon opened two more of his black panes, and his teammates looked at the exertion with a bit of concern. The rabbit monster looked up at the sinister construct with a heavy frown as they reached the edge of the clearing made during its construction. "Yeah, no. We are not leaving this nightmare in working condition," he said unhappily, his eyes quickly moving between his data and the structure. "Right now it’s doing three things: powering itself and any of those mind control things, amplifying the control signal for those things, and also amplifying another signal that looks like it would mess with the typical energy used in evolution." One of his panes shattered and a black glow appeared at the edge of the cleared area. "But it has the ability to do a lot of other, far less nice things just as soon as it gets the order."

"Does that mean we can't use the Polyhedrons?" Shawn asked cautiously, while Serperior carefully handled the Tetrahedron he was keeping just in case they needed their combined form. "Because that is a lot of lost firepower for us."

"No, the blocks here would miss that because the things merge when we use them," Gazimon paused thoughtfully. "The energy is transferred to the Polyhedron, then added in the merging process. It might stop me from switching from one to another, but not using one in the first place."

"Well, that's a relief," Serperior noted, then noticed that the group of villagers were staring at them again. "I don't actually think you guys want us to explain that one if we don't have to."

"Anyway, that's nowhere near the worst part of it," Gazimon cut in before anyone could follow that topic further. "First off it is drawing in ambient energy from the area around it, which is actually probably the reason he removed these trees so they wouldn't interfere with that. However, it doesn't have to stick to just that. It can drain from everything around it, and it looks like the ring things help with that little nightmare."

"Ah, yes I think we definitely don't want something like that around," the village leader stuttered.

The rabbit digimon looked over at the fearful expressions of the locals. "Guys, I don't think these guys could take me telling them the rest," he told his team. "Bring it down," he added dismissing his remaining panes.

Serperior barely moved, just a quick green flash from halfway across the clearing, then the entire tower slid down to the ground and fell away from the village with a massive crash. "Done," the Starter said at the same time as his trainer.

"You guys are actually Champions aren't you," the female Bearmon sighed, not really asking a question.

"I'm a maybe on that front, Serp's a yes, and I think Shawn's still in the Rookie range," Gazimon absentmindedly answered anyway. "We should probably change topics to something that doesn't scare you guys," he admitted after seeing the reaction to that response.

The leader of the Bearmon sighed heavily. "How long can your group stay to make sure the Emperor does not attack us?" he asked unhappily.

"Honestly? I want to spend the rest of the day here," Shawn noted. "Get some more background on what's happening right now in this world, figure out what we can about the remains of this, and keep this 'Emperor' away. Then head out again tomorrow morning."

"I really hate to ask this, but would you be alright with me setting up some equipment," Gazimon started, then stopped. "No, this can't be sugar coated, can I setup a Dark Network Node here? I will make sure it is only under my control, but I understand that is a big thing to request."

"Etemon's network, or the older one?" one of the older looking Bearmon asked.

"It was the first, I'm trying to make it the second again," the rabbit monster said with a smile. "It would let me see if taking that thing down let us contact our home, and I think I might be able to set things up so we can transport to it if you need help."

"So, you're asking permission for something that would keep us safer?" the leader asked uncertainly.

"And that could be easily adapted to be the same kind of danger as that tower," Gazimon cautioned. "They are both based on the same general idea. You would need to trust me."

"We could always smash it if it does anything we don't like," the female noted, earning a laugh from all of the Troubleshooters. "Okay, that was supposed to be annoying, not funny."

"Well it was kind of the thing I'd have said about it," Shawn said smugly. "We have parts for extras, and I think we might be able to break down this abomination for spares." He pointed at the remains of the Spire.

\---

A teenager wearing a blue and white uniform, fitted with an insect wing shaped deep blue cloak with golden edges, golden shoulder pads, and metal components around his wrists and ankles, paced inside of the massive control room. Nearby a segmented caterpillar digimon, green in color overall with a purple mouth and claws stood nervously twitching its thin antenna and rear pincers.

Ken Ichijouji, the Digimon Emperor, glared at the single white square in the center of a massive expanse of his own blackened domain. Another region gone from his control, and worst of all it was taken from him while he was wasting his time pretending he needed the approval of those fools who ran his school. "Wormmon, would you care to explain what I'm looking at here?"

"I'm sorry Ken, I couldn't get anyone there to check it out," the pitiful excuse for a servant said, and with that he earned a kick for using his name again. "Emperor, I meant Emperor!"

"Did the tower at least see which of those Digidestined took it out?" he ground out at the worthless creature, then without even waiting for a response walked over to check himself.

A quick check showed the moments just before it was destroyed were simply static, which was strange as the boy genius was quite sure there wasn't anything that could disrupt his towers, it was their job to disrupt other things. The other data streams also simply were dead, with only baseline data present. The Emperor looked over the earlier files, and noticed that the Dark Ring connection number dropped to zero some time before the tower's destruction. "They waited for that long to destroy the Spire?" he asked aloud, confused. The meddling kids seemed more likely to destroy his Spires first, and free his slaves all at once instead of taking the time to remove the rings while they were still active.

"Maybe they didn't see it?" Wormmon suggested unhelpfully.

"Be quiet and let me investigate," he told the insect. There was a few of them done fairly close together, and then the number of controlled digimon dropped to almost nothing all at once, followed soon after by a slower removal of the rest. The video from the Spire during this time told him nothing, with the forest just dense enough to hide the event from sight. "It seems they found a way to destroy them quickly."

Thoughtfully he moved the footage to just a few of minute before the data was lost, and was rewarded for his efforts with the sight of the stupid Bearmon following three unknowns to the clearing around his Spire. There was a good sized snake monster he did not immediately recognize, a human wearing a massive hiking pack, and strangely enough a Gazimon with a black shape floating in front of it. The rabbit monster made a subtle motion, and two more of the unnatural shapes appeared. The group was still too far for him to hear, although that seemed odd to the ruler of the digital world.

Suddenly, one of the black objects vanished with a flash of darkness, and the image went to static. "Wormmon, what was that snake digimon?" he demanded, enraged by the audacity of that pathetic purple furred Rookie to disrupt his tower.

"I don't know," the green grub said, unusually serious. "I've never seen a digimon like it."

Ken paused at the tone of his minion. Usually the insect would try and appease his Emperor, even if he was ignorant of what the real answer was, but this time there seemed to be genuine confusion, possibly even fear in that tone. "Well I guess you will be researching it then," he told the digimon, partially to regain his own composure.

"Something doesn't feel right about them," Wormmon insisted. "I'll check everything we have." The quick agreement, without even the slightest bit of the creature's typical doubt, removed what little comfort Ken had taken from giving the order. "Should we go and take that one back?" the digimon then asked, sounding almost in favor of the idea.

"No, if they are anything like the others then they're already long gone, and it isn't like I was using those slaves for anything yet anyway," he said walking over to the computers to find something to take his mind off how upset he was, at least for now. "We will just have to wait and see if they try this again."


	66. 4-02 Digimon Emperor

\--- Digimon Emperor ---

Koshiro Izumi, more commonly called 'Izzy' by both friends and family, looked over the map of the digital world with concern. The sheer scale of the issue wasn't quite as bad as Spiral Mountain had been, but it was still a significant amount of the digital world that needed direct help. Sadly, the three new white squares might not be help, but instead yet another thing his friends would have to fix.

"Trying to clear out a circle of space," he noted aloud. The new section of freed territory was right in the middle of one of the Emperor's larger conquests, and so far the new Digidestined were focusing on keeping the Emperor from taking any new areas. "Some sort of thing that doesn't work around the Spires?" A big part of the young genius wished that Tentomon was there to bounce ideas off.

With a sigh Izzy realized he couldn't figure out why without at least knowing who, and there was no way that the madman trying to take over the digital world this time had not also figured out the pattern. Whoever was doing this was on foot, and either knew that the Emperor apparently still went to school, or was simply lucky enough to have just ended up doing this at times when the kid wasn't around to counter him. Which unfortunately would not protect them now, so the others needed to be told what the situation appeared to be, and hopefully they would be able to go and save whoever it was before the Emperor attacked them.

For a moment he considered telling T.K. first, but the thought of Davis' reaction made him consider instead telling Tai's named successor instead. The two seemed to have a similar ability to get along as Tai and Matt had, which honestly wasn't that great. The rest of the new team was also new enough to things that he wasn't sure which of those two was actually the one who took charge more easily. He had to figure out who could defuse any issues they had to best save whoever was out there fighting back against tyranny.

In the end he sent the information to Kari.

\---

"This is so awesome," Davis said as they gathered in the school computer room. "Some new digimon who are taking the fight to the Emperor with us."

"It might be a trick," T.K. cautioned the others. "We don't know why these areas are going back to normal."

"Come on, J.K., it has to be some awesome new digimon that's beating the crap out of that 'Emperor'," Davis argued, with DemiVeemon giving his own excited agreement.

"T.K. is right, Davis," Kari cut in, emphasizing her long time friend's actual shortened name. "We don't know that this isn't just the Emperor setting up a trap for us."

"Of course Kari, we'll be extra careful of his trap," Davis revised his opinion in a clear attempt to appeal to the Digidestined of Light.

"But we still need to try and help if it is someone fighting back," Cody spoke up.

"Cody's right, we can't just leave them there," Yolei agreed, prompting the remaining newer digimon to vocally agree.

"We aren't leaving any 'them' there," Gatomon complained. "We just need to be on edge just in case the 'them' is actually another threat." Patamon unhappily nodded in agreement.

T.K. sighed at the argument, looking over at the map portion of the Digital Gate interface with unease. Even the digimon Emperor himself was still only really active after school, and he had never heard of any adults making it to the digital world. The single square with an unnatural red color that had appeared earlier in the day was also there as well, but Izzy had no idea where to start with that one, so they were dealing with the more understandable issue first.

"Let's just get moving," Davis complained, mirroring T.K.'s own thoughts to a degree. The goggle headed member of their current group walked over to the computer. "Digiport, open!"

The others filed in behind him, somewhat exasperated by his exuberance, and they all made the transition. Considering how they had not made that many trips yet the fact that they all landed on their feet on the other end was still an achievement, even if it was a bit of a shaky landing. The part of the digital world they arrived at was along the edge of a massive forest, with green fields taking up much of what they could see. Green fields filled with evenly spaced parking meters, as if the grass was all part of some massive parking lot. A good distance away was a large collection of what looked like bus stops with a Control Spire standing next to them.

"So, do we check the town thing, or the forest?" Yolei asked looking over the strange collection of structures, clearly unsure if they were actually a town at all.

"According to the map they would be coming out of the forest," T.K. noted.

"Well, let's just split up then," Davis said, while clearly maneuvering to stand closer to Kari. "Some of us go to the village, while the rest of us check out the forest."

"That sounds great, Davis!" Kari said cheerfully. "You can go to the forest with T.K. and Cody, while Yolei and I can check the village."

The rest of the team smiled with amusement at what was rapidly becoming a common theme between the two of them, careful to not let Davis see. "But," the gogglehead said quietly.

"Works for me," Yolei chirped, while Hawkmon snickered hiding behind her. "Come'on Kari, let's go."

"Well, let's get started," T.K. said with amusement as Davis mumbled to himself.

"Any clues, Armadillomon?" Cody asked his partner while the six of them made their way through the edges of the forest.

"Nope, not one that's much for woodlands myself," the armadillo digimon drawled happily.

"I think I can see a clearing up ahead," Patamon said while flying just above the treetops. "Maybe they're there?"

"Worth a shot," the Digidestined of Hope agreed.

They soon arrived to find a camp site. A very nice camp site, with a large heavy duty tent, a medium sized portable stove setup, and a massive green and yellow snake monster looking right at them. "Ah, Gazi, I think I can see the 'hamster' one," the creature said, pointing a small leaf near its head as if that was an arm right at Patamon.

"Serp, I already told you I didn't know why there were two digimon I didn't recognize on my scans," a voice said from the tent, quickly revealed to be a Gazimon that emerged to look their group over. "I'm guessing new Digidestined though. I like the new hat kid," he said to T.K. with a nod.

"Ah, so these are the Digidestined then?" an older kid, probably around Joe's age, asked the purple furred digimon as he walked out of the tent. "Uh, didn't those digimon say they've been doing this for four years?"

"The kid with the Patamon was the youngest. Can't really tell how old humans are myself, so I don't know how that changes things," the Gazimon replied. "A lot younger than the others, he actually looks to be about that age now."

"Ah, okay, that's better actually," the human said, and the Digidestined now were able to spot that his eyes were strangely colored red. "Shawn Reading, nice to meet you all."

"Uh," T.K. said uncertainly at the sight of someone who looked mostly human standing in the most comfortable situation he had ever seen in the digital world since Gennai's house.

"Hey there, you're the one taking down the Control Spires, right?" Davis asked, having not experienced months of time spent roughing it in the wilds of the digital world.

"Mostly trying to get rid of that damn interference pattern they're sending out," Gazimon complained. "Long story."

"It also seemed like a way to find out more about this 'Emperor' that is supposedly using the things, but we haven't seen him yet," the snake added. "We've hit three so far this week, and even with us waiting until noon after taking one down we still haven't seen him show up."

"I think he's been at school," Cody contributed uneasily. Strangely enough this caused all three of the campers to look very confused. "Uh, at least he seems to be on the same schedule as the rest of us."

"You guys are so used to this now that you have a schedule?" the rabbit monster asked with a strangely proud confusion.

"I'm pretty sure 'used to it' makes that sound better than it is," Patamon complained looking at the digimon with consideration. "You were one of Etemon's, weren't you?"

"Yeah. On one hand I want to thank Mr. Greymon for the save, but on the other he kind of hit the monkey so hard I got flung all the way to another universe," Gazimon admitted with a smirk.

"Wait, you got sent somewhere else by that too?" T.K. asked with surprise. "I thought it was just Tai and Agumon." The three new faces all flinched at this admission. "It was a lot more than just the three of you, wasn't it?" he then asked unhappily.

"There was," Gazimon agreed sadly. "So the guys who took Etemon down did survive? We were a bit worried about that."

"Wait, so you guys are from, like, some other digital world?" Davis asked pointing at the snake monster. "Does that mean there's another human world too?"

T.K. blinked at this statement, remembering the warning Gennai gave about possible consequences of opening Myotismon's gate to the human world wrong. "Did you have problems getting here?" the veteran Digidestined asked as well, while pointing at his own eyes to question the strange color of this new kid's.

"There are actually a lot of other worlds," Shawn replied with a chuckle. "And my eyes did end up basically swapped with Serperior's because of a bit of a problem the two of us had," he added pointing out the blue eyes of the serpent.

"So you're Serperiormon?" Veemon questioned looking up at the large snake, its size big enough to make it unclear if it was a Rookie digimon or even stronger.

"It's just Serperior, actually," the serpent replied regally. "I'm still rather confounded by how the inhabitants of this world all include the file extension as part of their names."

"So you aren't in any danger then?" Cody asked with a bit of worry.

"Actually we probably are," Gazimon said with a smile. "Three days is far too long for this 'Emperor' to not know where we are."

"Which means with you guys here we should probably pack up," Shawn said sounding unusually happy.

Then something insane happened for a bit too long, as if the scene in front of them was from something out of a cartoon. It started with the tent being emptied, which looked normal enough even if the three bags the campers had didn't look anywhere big enough for all the stuff they took out. The sleeping bag was secured to the top of the largest pack, and the smaller items vanished into pockets quickly enough that the Digidestined could not tell how full the bag had been beforehand. Then a small refrigerator was removed from the tent, the device clearly working just fine without an apparent power source, and then they proceeded to simply lower it into the largest opening of the biggest pack as if it wasn't larger than the bag.

This continued to be the case, as they only partially disassembled the portable stove before doing the same with it. The tent itself was casually taken down, but the long barbed stakes that had been holding it into the ground seemed a bit too solidly setup to have come back out of the ground as casually as they did. A good sized computerized system was removed and actually placed into a section of the largest bag that seemed to actually be big enough for it to fit inside of, and then the rest of the tent was bundled up and put into yet another bag that could not possibly hold it.

In the end a clearing full of creature comforts turned into an empty clearing with a human and two digimon wearing packs in a trivial amount of time.

"That was," T.K. started after everything is done. "Impressive," he managed to finish with a lot of unease and a hint of jealously at how well equipped this group was.

"How did you fit everything into that?" Cody asked, while Armadillomon moved closer to his partner in the face of this strange display.

"Uh, I put them into storage pockets?" Shawn said, with the tone of someone who thought the answer to a question was so obvious that it being asked was the odd part. "You do have item storage right?" he asked at the confused looks he received in response.

"I don't think they-" Gazimon started, only to cut off and look towards the woods leading to the fields. "Oh boy. Everyone hide, we have a problem!" he said firmly and suddenly the Digidestined found themselves half drug into the tree line.

"What's the big idea?" Veemon asked.

"Yeah, what's so scary?" Davis agreed with a huff.

"Myotismon's right hand cat is over there," Gazimon said roughly, making T.K. and Patamon tense, but only confusing the others. "A powerful Champion stage digimon that worked as the vampire's main enforcer. I don't know how she survived, but it looks like she has some humans with her too."

"Gatomon's not like that anymore!" Patamon argued, glaring at the purple furred digimon.

"Those are just our friends," T.K. agreed a bit more cautiously, glancing at the two newer Digidestined with some unease at having to explain that part of the cat digimon's past. "Myotismon was forcing Kari's partner to work for him."

"The vampire bastard had one of you under his control?" the rabbit monster asked visibly calming down.

"T.K., Davis?" Kari called out from the clearing.

"Cody?" Yolei added moments later.

"We're over here!" Davis called out walking back out into the clearing a bit forcefully, soon followed by the rest of the expanded group. "We found the new guy."

"Guys," Serperior noted, slightly confused by how he'd been overlooked. "There are three of us."

"Ah, well hello," Yolei nervously said to the human sized snake. "Uh."

"Shawn Reading," the human with red eyes noted, before pointing out the other two. "With my teammates, Serperior and Gazimon."

"They were just saying that Gatomon used to be an evil digimon?" Veemon questioned uncertainly, and Davis quickly attempted to stop his partner from saying more.

"Oh," the cat digimon said a bit faintly, then looked over the three newcomers. "Oh! You're one of the missing digimon that was with Etemon," she then said more excitedly, missing the look of shock from the three new Digidestined at how the older members weren't arguing with the accusation. "Where have you been?"

"Apparently you guys already knew that the end of that one got some people thrown out of the universe?" Gazimon asked in answer, a bit nervously. "Sorry about letting out who you were before," he continued sadly. "Last time I saw you was when the old bat was taking a Devidramon from the damn monkey."

Gatomon sighed at this. "You probably meant for the best if that's the last thing you remember about me," she complained, then looked thoughtfully at the rabbit monster. "Although I'm fairly sure I was still a Salamon back then, so I'm wondering just how old you are."

"Ugh, can we not get into that?" the purple furred digimon complained. "How about we take down that stupid tower over that way and you can let us know what you're plan for us is?"

"That sounds like a plan to me," T.K. agreed with a sigh. "We can talk about the rest once we're back in the real world."

Shawn nodded at this, and after his serpentine teammate partially wrapped around him he began walking forward at a rather fast pace. The Digidestined were quite surprised to find that the human could so easily move through the forest so quickly. Unfortunately it appeared that they had run out of time while searching.

"Well, well, well. Look who we have here," the Digimon Emperor said grandly from the top of a Flymon. The large bee digimon mount was accompanied by a pair of identical monsters, and below the three flyers was a mass of eyeless green colored caterpillar digimon with harsh beaks moved towards them ominously. "A bunch of children playing hero, along with a new fool opposing my will."

"Seriously, there are three of us," Serperior complained out loud. "Or do monsters not count to humans in this world?" he asked harshly, locking his eyes onto the purple lenses of the Emperor's glasses.

"Patamon," T.K. said strongly to his partner, soon echoed by the other Digidestined with their own digimon. "Digiarmor Energize!"

"Yeah, I guess wings might help," Gazimon said calmly, tapping a seven sided golden colored item on his pack's strap. Then to the mild surprise of the Digidestined he apparently joined in the armor evolutions. After a moment the entire group was transformed, Flamedramon, Halsemon, Digmon, Nefertimon, and unbelievably two different Pegasusmon.

Patamon's new form had the typical light coloration the Digidestined were used to, but the new winged horse was instead a darker orange with grey instead of white wings. "Really?" this other one asked with a bit of exasperation. "This is happening now? I mean, I used a 'Hope' speech to get this, but this is a bit ridiculous."

"Now, now," the Emperor cut in, clearly not actually paying much attention to the new digimon's antics. "Maybe you should be a bit careful. These poor little digimon might not be able to take a real fight," he sarcastically taunted, having the three Champion digimon move back while the horde of Rookies charged forward.

"Pitiful," Shawn coldly said at the display, shocking everyone but his teammates with his tone. "Serp, show him why this was a stupid idea." The snake monster clearly agreed with his partner on this, as he made a notable movement of his body that seemed to kick up a cloud of leaves, which then darted forward clearly making up an attack.

"Wait!" T.K. called out seeing the massive storm of leaves heading for the many fairly weak digimon. "They're just mind controlled!" The Digidestined were even able to see a brief flash of horror on the Emperor’s face at the coldhearted order to attack the crowd.

The now glowing green leaves then swirled across the Dokunemon, strangely enough only barely nicking their bodies, while at the same time almost casually slashing through each and every Dark Ring controlling the mass of digimon.

"Impossible!" the Emperor shouted at the sight, and the Digidestined found themselves strangely agreeing with the madman's declaration.

"You know Serp, we kinda had six evolved digimon here?" the darker furred Pegasusmon complained. "I think we could have handled that."

"He did that with one attack?" Yolei questioned out loud, drawing the attention and confusion of Shawn and Serperior.

"Grr, Flymon, take them down!" the Emperor ordered, then hit the one he was riding with his whip as it surged forward. "Not you, the other ones!"

"Gazi, up for taking down the tower?" Shawn asked, still unconcerned with his earlier order.

"I'm willing if these guys don't want to," his Pegasusmon answered roughly.

"Go ahead?" the other one who was typical a Patamon said uncertainly. Then watched uneasily as the other winged horse quickly moved forward past the two giant bees.

"Alright everybody, keep them off him!" Davis shouted. The Armor Digivolutions all quickly moved to intercept the flying enemies, while the many Dokunemon fled back towards their little town.

The evolved Gazimon made it to the Spire very quickly, and then strangely enough unleashed a black colored slashing attack that cut down the tower in a single blow.

The Digimon Emperor visibly growled at this event, and just out of range of hearing yelled something at the Flymon he was on. The two then retreated quickly, while the Digidestined's partners took out the Dark Rings on the other two. The various digimon then returned to the group and their Rookie forms.

"You know, that was actually something that could have beaten us," T.K. criticized the red eyed human. "There was a lot more digimon under his control than we could have handled in a straight fight."

"Ha, really? New guys are that new?" Gazimon laughed at this explanation. "Last time I saw the Digidestined you guys were outright besieging Etemon's base, and that had an entire army of Champions under mind control protecting it."

T.K. had to flinch at the reminder of darker days, and he could see Kari also realizing a major difference between back then and right now. Back then they didn't even think about hitting hard enough to destroy an enemy digimon. That was honestly a bit worse of a topic to talk with the new kids about than Gatomon's former allegiance had been.

"Hey! Just because we're new doesn't mean we aren't catching up!" Davis argued, unwittingly saving the older Digidestined from having to get across the harsher nature of their former conflicts.

"Yeah, it’s only been a couple of weeks since we started," Yolei agreed picking up Hawkmon.

"Okay, that's a good reason," Shawn noted idly. "That is a bit of a bigger issue for a new team to handle."

The Digidestined collectively blinked at this casual statement, and looked at each other in a bit of confusion over how this older kid was acting like this whole thing had been perfectly normal.

"Huh, I guess that look is common to both of these worlds," Serperior said with a bit of a laugh. "When Gazi first showed up he had that one all the time. Not to mention the other digimon we've met so far."

"Let's just go home," T.K. suggested nervously, unsure how to take the strange alien monster's statement.

The enlarged group started walking back to the TV that would take them home. "So, how did you get to the digital world anyway?" Yolei asked curiously.

"Followed some criminals my job sort of has to handle," Shawn replied easily, despite the shear strangeness of every part of that statement. "We were actually a bit worried that they'd end up getting captured by those 'Dark Master' guys, but apparently they've already been beaten by you guys. Given how 'dangerous' this Emperor seems to be right now I'm now a bit more worried that Team Upload is going to try their own hands at supervilliany."

Everyone stopped at this. "Wait, are you saying that there is another group out there trying to conquer the digital world?" Davis asked horrified.

\---

Shawn wasn't sure what to make of the group by the time they reached the locals' portal device. They seemed to mostly be the same as kids at the start of their first League run, and yet at the same time they didn't seem to have as much of the drive he was used to seeing in such people. The two veteran trainers were clearly taking turns of being in charge, mostly in an attempt save the pride of the younger trainer who clearly wanted to lead. That trainer, Davis, was clearly the type to be more interested in looking cool and getting girls than anything else, although with a clear heroic streak that likely made up for the downsides of his pride. The bird digimon's trainer, Yolei he was fairly sure, seemed to be a solid one with regards to dedication, but not quite able to note what things were best to focus on yet. The smallest of them, Cody, was the quiet type that usually did a good job of training but never managed to stand out.

Not once, however, did any of them interact with their monster teammates in what he'd consider a typical manner for their kind of partnership. Davis seemed to think of his Veemon as a small cheering section from what little Shawn had seen so far, and otherwise appeared to be somewhat awkward with the reptile. Yolei and Hawkmon were both serious in different ways, and the minor clash that caused was fairly apparent from even a brief look. Shawn hoped that the two were trying to talk things out still, instead of just working around each other. Armadillomon seemed to be more outgoing than Cody, and from his experience with Quagsire he expected those two to have the armored digimon be the talker of the pair eventually. Only a couple of weeks was nowhere near enough time to fully understand your Starters, so Shawn hoped it was just the typical issues that a new team faced.

The two others were better after all. T.K., which had to be short for something, was the kind of protective and trusting that only came from nearly losing an ally that just saved you. Kari on the other hand was the kind of kindness that could burn people, strong to the point it could overwhelm you, and firm in ways that didn't always look as nice as they actually were. Exactly what Shawn expected from someone with a former villain as her Starter. Those two pairs had focused the most on his team since their arrival, and seemed to be the only ones considering leaving them behind.

Which, Shawn felt, was probably what he would have done in their shoes. Find a place nearby, say 'wait for us here', and verify what was going on before taking the strange red eyed maybe-human and his friends home with them.

"So, Gazi," the red eyed trainer said quietly to his digimon teammate, careful to keep it to an inhuman hiss. "Would you be able to get us back from their human world?"

"Better than here," the rabbit monster admitted unhappily. "I'll also be able to see if I can maintain a connection from there to the node we left behind."

They were clearly unheard by the Digidestined walking ahead of them, the group still caught up in discussing what little he had explained so far about Upload. Which was just that they were digital monster using thieves, with Champion stage monsters available to them. The rest could wait until he got to their main facility.

"They are trusting," Serperior complemented the group. "Although strangely untrained. I'd think a new team would get a lot more support in their first weeks to make sure that they could at least get out of that mess."

"I'm guessing that they only have so many of whatever they're using to evolve like that," Gazimon noted. "Probably had the younger kids take charge of the rest of the new ones with the full set of things."

They soon arrived at a monitor sitting in the middle of nowhere. Shawn frowned at the device, having spotted one earlier in their travels. "Gazi?" he questioned motioning towards the device.

"The one we found was sort of like a pad, but totally inactive," the digimon responded quietly. "Not sure if I should check properly around them yet." Shawn nodded in agreement with the caution, the digimon they had encountered so far had all reacted poorly to Gazimon's data manipulation abilities.

"Alright, this might get a bit crowded on the other side," T.K. said, clearly meaning the size of Serperior.

"I think we should be fine," Shawn said, and then after meeting the eyes of his teammates to confirm he used their pokeballs to return them. "See, much less space."

"Does everything in your world fit into tiny spaces?" Davis asked, his tone matching the confused looks on the rest of his team.

"No, some stuff isn't safe to do that with," the trainer replied smartly. "That's why my sleeping bag is outside of that kind of thing."

"I don't even know where to start about that one," Yolei complained. "Let's get home so we can figure this out properly."

\---

Ken Ichijouji stomped into his control room, still quite angry over the sheer ease that the newest human threat had taken out an entire army of his slaves in a single action. He should have expected it, he knew that they had some method of taking out that many Dark Rings at once. He had assumed it was some technological solution, not a single digimon's attack, but the latter was clearly the case.

"Hurry up! Get more rings ready, and prepare for battle!" the Digimon Emperor heard from inside the room. "Try and keep the little ones from hitting someone else's ring," Wormmon was ordering someone over Ken's communication systems. "Find some way to keep them from getting anywhere else."

The young genius simply stared at his timid and overly caring digimon, unsure what exactly he was seeing. The small insect digimon was rushing over at least three consoles, each set to a different task the Emperor had set up for his subjects. For the first time the green grub was actually working with his resources in a way that had always seemed to bring criticism from the digimon before.

"Wormmon, what are you doing?" he asked, managing to sound genuinely curious instead of horrified by the sudden shift.

"There are monsters invading," the digimon replied tiredly. "Terrible things, worse than what you're doing, Ken." The insect looked terrified now that the Emperor had gotten closer. "Monsters that are worse than anything I've heard about. Red crystal things that are not supposed to exist!" He tapped a button with a claw, starting playback on events from earlier in the day.

The video was of a swarm of red polygons moving over the area around a Spire. Specifically a simplistic flat red color that reminded Ken of the most primitive attempts at computer modeling, and set even his nerves on edge just looking at them. He could just barely make out that there were different kinds among the swarm, but only the largest stood out clearly.

The first were vaguely humanoid, but also were blunt blocks of material. Clearly combat units of some kind with their large forms and sharp claws. Then there were the serpents, long blade covered monsters that seemed to ignore even the ground beneath them as they twisted along with the mass, with small puffs of flame just as unnaturally colored as themselves visible at their mouths. Finally, there were the floating crystals. They looked much like his Spires in a different color, and these ones moved behind the others, converting patches of ground into the same polygonal material as themselves as they went.

The video cut out at this point, and Wormmon quickly replaced it with the map. Six squares, three all connected and three more completely unrelated to the others were now the same flat red as the monsters. "How quickly are they spreading?" Ken asked, and for once his partner jumped to answer.

"They've slowed down now, Ken," the digimon replied, and only now did the destined ruler of the digital world realize he'd been letting the name slip. "No new conquests since those sites." The insect did not sound happy about that. "But those all happened just today." The digimon looked up at him with clear worry and fear, and then three more squares began to flash that same red color.


	67. 4-03 From the Shadows

\--- From the Shadows ---

HackBiyomon flapped out of the way as quickly as she could once she was through the portal. All around her were the gathered remains of Team Upload, with a tear in reality marking where the rest were still coming through. Three of the grunts, one of each kind of hybrid, had actually made it there. However, the bird digimon knew that the remaining two had both gone through before her, and there also seemed to be a lot of Hackware units missing that she had seen escape.

"Some of us ended up getting lost?" she asked the Wyrm hybrid. The plan was to track anyone in such a state down after they found a safe spot to stop.

"Looks like it," the serpentine woman noted. "I think I felt one of them get knocked off course, but I couldn't really do anything while we were traveling."

Nodding at that sadly, the former clone flapped over to a tree and simply breathed. She was free now, truly free of Datamon or any of the consequences he had led her into. Thinking this, however, caused the digimon to flinch at the reminder that she had been just as much a criminal by choice as those gathering around her.

So to take her mind off that topic she looked at the sparse woods they had arrived right at the edge of, and frowned at the sight of a random vending machine simply sitting in the middle of them. She had not seen such a thing outside of her memories of Sora's time in the digimon world, and the similarity here was offputting.

She was then distracted by the return of Alice and Bob from a brief perimeter check. "Nothing here but a bunch of slug monsters hiding in an old vending machine that someone lost," Bob says tiredly, nearly causing HackBiyomon to fall out of her tree. "Should be a good place to catch our breath."

Absol tumbled out of the still rippling gate before the avian digimon could even groan about their situation. "Dammit Anderson! You had damn well better be right behind me!" the first Hackware Hybrid shouted at the gateway, he then struggled to get back on his feet and collect himself.

There was a final surge of Hackware after him, and then finally the form of The Hackware Architect emerged as the portal collapsed. The imp-like polygonal creature simply flopped on the ground tiredly. "The next time I have the smart idea to try and face an equal in combat when said equal also has strong allies, please stop me," the developer said to the group, still sounding calm and collected despite how obviously exhausted he was. "What does our situation look like?"

"Calm for now, boss, but it can change quick if anything notable finds us," Alice answered. "We will need to spend a bit of time searching for power sources to get ready for the second trip."

"That should be fine," the Architect started.

"This is the digimon world," HackBiyomon interrupted them with a sigh, having spotted a Numemon that had gathered the courage to briefly peak out at the mass of strange digimon. "My home world I guess."

"Ah, that is considerably less fine," the group's leader corrected himself unhappily. "Absol, how quickly should we move out to get a better amount of space between us and DSS?" A moment passed without any reply, causing everyone to turn and look at the terrified form of the disaster sensing pokemon. "Absol?"

"We are fucked," the pokemon said bluntly. "We are so fucked." He then buried his head under his forepaws.

"How quickly do we need to run?" Bob asked seriously.

"Won't help. There is literally nowhere far enough away for us to be safe from these," Absol replied. "Right, let me explain better. We have just totally by happenstance fucked this world. Somebody is trying to start their conquest of the entire multiverse right here, and they've been holding back."

"That isn't actually news to me," HackBiyomon noted unhappily. "That was why the Digidestined were being assembled, and we- they were supposed to stop that from working. The bad guys seemed to be mostly trying to work around us instead of taking us out directly. Them, taking them out."

"The problem is that whatever they have now is enough to win," the other Dark type complained. "If the locals had more time, then we wouldn't need to worry because they would take them out. The problem I can plainly see is that if the bad guys lackeys get taken down too quickly, then they escalate beyond what we can handle."

"We can't handle it?" Bob asked unhappily. "So why can't we just run?"

"Because DSS is following us," the Architect noted dully. "And if they find these enemies they may just try and crush them quickly so they would be free to track us again."

"Which either causes them to hit back with their hidden true power and take over, or apparently they decide to destroy absolutely everything they can if they lose," Absol clarified further. "So we can't run, and we definitely can't just try and help the heroes because we would only smash the weak ones quicker." The Wyrm Hybrid sighed. "Which means our only option is to try and offset the effect DSS is having on things by siding with-"

Before HackBiyomon could, the entire rest of the group cried out, equally upset with that reality. "We did not just run out of the universe just to end up under someone else's heel again!" the Goliath grunt complained, his statement covering most of the reasons given.

"I'm not saying we have to just work for them entirely," Absol argued, and for a brief moment met HackBiyomon's eyes. "What I was going to propose is that we act as mercenaries, independent from their own forces but aiding them."

The bird digimon felt like she was being tortured. Here was the world she was from, the world that Sora was supposedly destined to protect, and she was left with a group that could not possibly help. A group that had broken that prophecy from the sound of things. She looked over the arguing faces of her new teammates, considered everything she could do now with a painful detachment, and came to a decision.

"What if we try and conquer the digital world ourselves?" she asked, shocking the rest into silence. "Not helping either side directly, just looking like we're the real threat."

"I am not sure what use this world would provide us HackBiyomon," the Architect noted calmly. "While I can see attempting to take such an action working as a distraction for DSS, it also seems like it would quickly overcome the minor threat at the same time."

"That's the trick," the avian said, with her tone an attempt at being sure. "We try and conquer in order to help the Digidestined." The others were still looking at her with confusion, but Absol was nodding absentmindedly. "We make ourselves just enough of a threat to them that they can get stronger while facing us, and at the same time make the threats from this world think they still have a chance to salvage their situation because we are distracting them." It was the best thing she could think of, if she could not be part of the team then she would do what she could in secret to help them. Manipulate things from the shadows to ensure that the good guys gained their own strength while the true villains’ plans fell apart without understanding why. She was quite sure that the real Sora would never have done something like this, that it was her added Dark nature giving her new options. "We force them to improve while giving the bad guys enough breathing room to think they don't need to get as powerful."

"It could work," Absol admitted with a mixture of relief and unhappiness. "We'd need to be very careful about things, and we might end up doing a bit more actual conquest than I think you expect, but it is one of the best options."

\---

The Worm was carefully hidden near the Control Spire. It had been two days now, and the news on what was happening in the digital world from the few locals they had spoken with had led them to this site of conflict. HackBiyomon was personally confused by both sides, with only Patamon as a truly familiar sight to the former clone. The evil Digidestined was worse than pathetic in her eyes, barely managing what Etemon had held against the older Digidestined. The new kids were even able to just attack the rings controlling the digimon he commanded, and there seemed to only be a single Rookie insect digimon actually loyal to him otherwise.

"Okay, so just to be clear," Alice said unhappily. "This is somehow not obviously a lackey playing the leader to them?"

"To be fair, these are all new ones," the avian digimon replied, then flinched as the feed showed the blue colored lizard listening to a poorly thought out instruction. "Also they are apparently spending most of their time in school."

"Honestly that is just as weird to me," the Shrine grunt noted. "Why do you guys spend so many years going to school?"

"Because that's the way it works," HackBiyomon said uncertainly. "How long do you guys go to school?"

"They're around the age we stop actually," the Architect said, distracted from his analysis of the power sources of the world. "11 is typically the age when young people can start on a League Run, and being a Trainer is a common requirement for a job outside of cities. Actually, given how you have noted you are from a city it makes more sense. Generally they have more employment sources that require more in depth education. I'd say that the upper limit is around 18 years, 20 if it is particularly in depth or you went back to school after you have proven yourself as a trainer."

The tower took a powerful hit from Patamon's new evolution, falling stars breaking the base of the tower and releasing the many digimon from the so called 'Emperor's control. Both sides quickly left, although the Worm had carefully followed the new heroes to their exit site.

"Ah, that's what those things are," Bob sighed. "Great, that's going to be a fun hole to plug without cutting it off completely."

"At least it gives us a starting point to reach this human world," the Architect cheerfully noted. "I am quite excited about seeing how its world encompassing data network changed things."

"I didn't really get to see your world," HackBiyomon sadly admitted. "I guess I can try and help with that project."

"Sorry," Absol said to her. "There wasn't any real safe way to have you do that before."

"So we want to avoid 'Japan' right?" Alice asked. "That way there is basically no chance to get spotted by them?"

"If we are too obvious with our actions we will set off the entire planet," Bob sighed. "That's the downside of a global network."

"What about our first targets?" the Goliath grunt complained. "We need to get power sources ready sometime soon."

"They have a map of who owns what," HackBiyomon told the hybrid, taking out her Pokedex to open a hijacked version of said system. "The thing started blinking red when we attempted to setup one of our chargers." She looked at Absol.

"I have a specific target we need to capture at least one of in order to get some security long term, preferably without anyone realizing they are why we grabbed that particular site," the pokemon added.

\---

The massive blue stone encircled by a golden ring covered with etchings felt powerful to all of them. The mass of Hackware they possessed was starting to run out of stored energy after three days of clandestine operations, and they needed to establish their bases very soon.

"So, this stops the multiverse from collapsing?" Bob asked unhappily. "Looks too fragile for my tastes."

"The Architect could probably only barely scratch it," Absol noted, not sounding like he actually disagreed.

"Exactly, anything we could possibly destroy right now is too fragile to hold together everything," the first Goliath hybrid complained. "Our best bet to make sure they don't know we're after it is to instead go for that manufacturing base the 'Emperor' is using for spare Spire parts two sectors over."

"Take that obvious target as our central base, a number of outer sites to make it clear we can simply retreat temporarily from any concentrated attacks, and then slowly begin wider conquest," the Architect agreed, his explanation also in a way the orders everyone would be following.

"Four sites to start," Alice said uncertainly. "One we hit with the main force, one with Absol and most of the Wyrms, and two with our Shrine hybrids to provide transport."

"We want at least seven locations to start off with, and at least one will have to look vulnerable or they'll think we cannot be overcome anytime soon," Absol noted, clearly sorting out disasters.

"We better start now," HackBiyomon complained looking up at the stone from her Pokedex. "If we do take these things, what can we do with them?"

"Dunno yet," Bob sighed. "We'll need some time to analyze this one, and we should probably wait a while to take over this particular area."

"This is most likely both exactly what we need to accomplish the task of defeating this enemy," the Architect noted, possibly unhappily although it was hard to tell from his tone. "And also the kind of Legendary artifact that would have had a protector pokemon in our own world. The apparent lack of one worries me."

"Someone to stop us not being here worries you?" HackBiyomon asked.

"Because our world is one where this kind of object has been attacked before, and as a result it is known to need that kind of protection," the demonic Hackware explained. "To see one unprotected either means that this enemy has already eliminated that defense."

"Or that this world has never faced that threat before," Bob complained to complete the thought. "Which means that the really big problems are still really easy to cause, and there isn't a good way of choosing who and how to protect them yet." He turned to look at the avian digimon. "I'd really hate to get stuck being the ones who have to help get all of that setup, so I hope DSS is up for that job."

"I'd like it a lot better if I wasn't trying to get them to do a lot of things better while working against them officially," Absol said. "There are so many disasters I'm trying to work out here where it is our disaster making our situation better by being a bad thing that happened to us." He sighed heavily. "That is actually even more confusing to do than it is to explain, so this is probably the last battle I'm going to be in on until we're past the worst parts. HackBiyomon shouldn't be in this one either, because the longer it takes for DSS to explain her the better results we can get from revealing her."

"I'm not happy with that part," the former clone complained, but nodded in agreement. "When we have some equipment to work with I might have a few things I want to try and do while I wait for these 'better results'."

The small group that had come to confirm the location of the object then made their way back to the adjacent section of the digital world where they were making the final preparations for the coming battle.

"Are we breaking this eyesore yet or not?" the Wyrm grunt asked, her body somewhat easy to lose among the mass of that line of Hackware gathered around her to wait for Absol's arrival.

"Oh no, I'm not wasting this resource on merely 'breaking' it," Alice said walking right up to the Control Spire. "This mess of potential backup plans is perfect for one thing we need to start things off properly." She then had her secondary nodes take up positions that made her surround the tower, and meaningfully tapped it with a finger. The Spire then changed color rapidly to Hackware red from that point outward, and instantly shattered into four parts as soon as it was completely converted. The bottom most piece remained in the ground, made into a recharge node that used the old energy collection method of the dark device for power. The other three then reshaped as they lowered to the ground around the new node, becoming octagonal pads to assist in transportation effects.

HackBiyomon sighed and opened her Pokedex to check the map. "Well, that's a conquest. We have to get started now," she told them, holding up the display to reveal the new red square.

\---

"Total losses so far are seven locations, with nine total sections of the digital world," Ken said quietly after the attack he personally witnessed ended. "The largest location being one of the places where I had been making Control Spires."

Wormmon was still panicking. He knew that had it been any other cause then he would be silently happy with how that particular place wasn't in Ken's hands anymore. However, instead there were monsters that were not digimon at all attacking them. Monsters that had literally swarmed over forces that even the Digidestined would have needed more time to deal with. "They just cut all of your Dark Rings," the digimon complained, and felt bad about being upset over that destruction. "The tiny ones were too fast to keep them away."

Ken didn't react harshly to the note, which told Wormmon all he needed to know about how worried his partner was. "How many of them were there?" the self proclaimed Digimon Emperor asked, partially to himself. "And what were the specific different kinds there?"

The insect digimon did not hesitate this time to get to the important information, because for the first time in so very long they both were working towards the same goal. "These were the strongest ones," he said, calling up images of the unique enemies.

Most of these appeared to be partially human with red crystal armor and body parts. Two sets of two sites were separately hit by forces led by floating part-humans with blocky bodies, each supported directly by a four legged part-human with sharp legs and bulky forms. The remaining small sites were swarmed by twisting worm or serpent like creatures, led by a snake bodied human and a large white furred monster. The main location was attacked by the most creatures overall, led by a demonic crystal Ultimate that was quite clearly the leader of the creatures overall.

"Three different kinds," Ken said thoughtfully. "Why aren't the snakes being attacked?"

"They can hide themselves, and move through solid objects," Wormmon noted, and found himself glaring at one of the smaller ones for a reason he could not name. "I think they are sneaky ones."

"Wormmon?" Ken asked, actually sounding worried. That made the digimon realize just how angry he had just been as he had noted that.

"They are wrong, Ken," Wormmon tried to tell his partner. "They shouldn't be here, they aren't supposed to exist." It probably was exaggeration, but the digimon could not help but think that way at the sight of creatures as cold and artificial as the Control Spires themselves. "Worse than that snake thing that you went after."

"They're his enemies," Ken responded in realization. "That snake monster was expecting these. That's the kind of fight I'm supposed to be up against." The tone was the kind that made Wormmon mad, the tone of when Ken was lost in whatever strange interpretation of the world he seemed caught in. "Everything before this was just the tutorial," the Emperor complained. "And I've been thinking that it is the main game."

"Can we do anything to stop them from destroying the rings?" Wormmon asked, hating himself for how he didn't even sound upset with the idea.

"I, I need to think about that," Ken admitted, still shaken. "Try and stop any more attacks," he ordered a bit more strongly.

\---

HackBiyomon could not call what they had just done a battle at any of the locations. The enslaved 'minions' of the Digimon Emperor had no way of reacting in time, and whoever had attempted to give them better orders was clearly regretting the weakness produced by the relatively easily destroyed Dark Rings. Which meant that they could have taken each and every Spire in the entire digital world down with just Dos swarms.

It makes it crystal clear how they could spook the real enemies here. "He's a trap isn't he?" she asked Absol while they were attempting to make sense of the assembly facility for Control Spire parts they had taken. "Just in case the original Digidestined were still able to deal with a threat."

"I don't think so, but there are definitely contingency plans in place for it," the pokemon replied, tapping a half finished tower. "I think you might simply be too used to how we can operate."

"Can they figure out how to deal with that out fast enough to make this work?" was the obvious question to ask next.

"Yeah, mostly because we don't have enough forces to hold a lot of areas instead of just destroying the Control Spires and moving on," Absol confirmed. "DSS will be able to see that quickly, and the smaller sites are vulnerable enough for the Emperor to at least kick us out."

"So, has anyone actually figured out what we're going to do with all the digimon we have now yet?" Alice asked the disaster sensor, walking in from where she had been inspecting a power generation part of the facility. "Because I really would like to know how to keep the plan going without figuring out a different way to enslave them, and just leaving them to be enslaved by him again doesn't sit right."

"We move them," HackBiyomon replied a touch unhappily. "Hide them somewhere if it is the Emperor, and let the Digidestined 'save' them if they're the ones to show up. Make sure the ones we let get rescued end up scared of us."

"So, create some other digital worlds using computer systems in the Digidestined's world, and keep them there? Make it look like we got rid of them?" the Shrine hybrid asked, looking more towards Absol than the digital bird.

"Short of actually doing something to them, yes," the pokemon said. "Have we found candidate targets yet?"

"We're taking over a 'European' bank's computers," Bob complained, sounding mostly upset with the specification. "That world has too many big governments for my liking, I can't really compare the places to our regions because of it. We'll probably need a couple of weeks just to figure out how to legally earn some money to put in the place, months if we want to try stealing from it."

"We can't just sell stuff?" Alice asked cautiously. "We have the gold, pearls, and gemstones we brought for that don't we?"

"They document stuff," the Goliath hybrid sighed. "The pearls would probably be best, but they also farm things a lot and I haven't been able to figure out yet how much ours would be worth."

"I have no idea where to start with any of that," HackBiyomon complained herself. Despite what the rest of the team had told her she still could not quite understand just how the pokemon world worked. The fact that most of the towns and cities in that world sounded like they were mostly independent from each other was confusing enough, but the way the League both was the widest spread organization, and also not actually in charge simply confused her.

"Maybe start by helping us understand just who would be going after us there if we're found?" Bob suggested. "Because there are a scary amount of active armies here, and that's a bit terrifying without any context on what they're like."

"Why do I suddenly have the feeling that the digital world is going to be less confusing to explain to you than the human one?" HackBiyomon rhetorically asked.


	68. 4-04 Typeless

\--- Typeless ---

Izzy nervously stood guard in the computer lab waiting for the others to return. T.K. had sent word of their success already, or at least word that they had found the person strong enough to fight the Emperor while traveling the digital world on foot, and were bringing him with them. The young genius wasn't sure what to think of that, and even less sure of his overall plan for the situation.

The team thankfully returned promptly, although the entire group failed to stay standing on their return again, with the sole exception of an older kid in a full set of hiking gear who was the only one to solidly land on both his feet. Which was a slightly terrifying show of experience, as the others were left stumbling and staggered until they still simply fell in a massive tangle. Combined with the clothes, which sent Izzy's thoughts racing with how much even just what he could see on the new kid would have helped during his own time in the digital world, presented a first impression that their new potential ally had not just done this before, but was fully prepared for it.

Which meant it took the appearance of a giant snake in a flash of light to realize that might not translate into being well experienced with how they did things.

"Hey, why are you letting him out?" Davis asked harshly, causing the new kid and his monster to both look at him in pure confusion. "If you can hide him so well why just stop when we're back home?"

"Hide?" the two newcomers asked together so cleanly that it was almost like only one person was speaking. "From what?"

"From the grownups?" Yolei asked, picking up Poromon.

Izzy now had time to spot the strangeness of the pair's eyes as they both mouthed out her words in total disbelief. "At a minimum we wouldn't want to explain how we got a snake of his size into school," he told the newcomers, and then sent a look at T.K. to try and get across that he needed more information to deal with this.

"Why did their Starters change form?" the snake asked sounding concerned. "Is that supposed to happen?"

'Starters' implied that you would get more, Izzy considered briefly as Cody gave a mostly inaccurate explanation that it was to conserve power by going into a less energy intensive form. Which was definitely part of it, but honestly it seemed to be more of a side effect of their more advanced digivices to him that was there to help hide the creatures. How that didn't apply to Patamon and Gatomon wasn't clear, by either explanation.

"Yolei, go get some sunglasses," the Digidestined of Knowledge whispered to the younger girl, pointing out the new arrival's eyes.

"We've gotten distracted from introductions," the new kid said at the end of the explanation, and clearly spotting the newer girl's departure. "My name is Shawn Reading. This is my Starter, Serperior. Apparently we're somewhere that larger monsters aren't supposed to be, so our other teammate, Gazimon, won't be joining us until we're somewhere appropriate." The strange red eyed kid sounded amused, but still had not actually put his partner back where the snake had come from.

"I've told my parents that a friend from a long way away is coming over," Izzy told him. "It is starting to get a bit late, and we all have school tomorrow. So are you willing to stay with me for the night and finish this discussion with the whole group afterwards tomorrow?"

\---

Shawn was not comfortable at all. If not for Gazimon recognizing Patamon, he probably would have taken the cloak and dagger attempt at hiding as a sign that these were just more criminals in hiding. It wasn't dark out, but he could sort of understand why the middle of a crowded city was not the place for unusual eyes or monsters the size of his Starter.

The older kid, Izzy, did not have his Starter with him, although he did get a brief explanation that the older kids trusted their digimon enough to leave them to work alone in the digital world. "Lots of people around," the trainer commented loudly as they walked to the Digidestined's home, where he apparently still lived with his parents.

"Not really, you must not be from a city," Izzy said quietly, clearly fishing for information.

"No," Shawn agreed easily. "And I don't think there are too many cities this size in my entire world." As he pretty much expected the other guy did not seem to anticipate that.

The place was honestly quite crowded, and there were so many cars everywhere that it was rather unbelievable that this world would even make the parts for all of them. The buildings were quite tight together and tall, but that wasn't unthinkable for a place with this many people.

Despite all of those hints, Shawn still found himself surprised when Izzy's home turned out to be an apartment. It possibly explained why he was still with his parents, but only if the Digidestined were currently underfunded after a long lack of actual issues to deal with. He really hoped that wasn't the case, because Janice complained enough about their own budget without adding someone else's budget arguments to the mix.

"Izzy, welcome home," the boy's mother said as they welcomed him into the home. "Hello, I'm Kae Izumi, this is my husband Masami. Izzy failed to mention your name."

"Shawn Reading," he greeted her, and ended up shaking both of their hands. "Honestly, I was planning on finding a hotel before he offered to try and fit me here. I should still be able to find one if he was overstating things." The older Izumis both seemed quite nervous at his appearance, and he wondered what sort of digimon they had for protection.

A wonder that only grew stronger as Izzy very strongly kept him from letting his team out and spent more of the evening preventing any serious conversation about the digital world. In the end between the clear curiosity of the guy's parents, Shawn’s own frustration over not being able to clear up anything, and Izzy's ever more blatant attempts to keep things quiet, they all simply ended up going to bed upset. Shawn was quite happy to insist on sleeping on the floor due to a claimed bad back that hopefully got across to Izzy that he wanted some answers of his own later.

\---

Masami Izumi felt he was perfectly in the right to arrange things so that the two of them could speak with Koshiro's sudden 'friend' a bit during the time after their son went to school. He just didn't expect the rather annoyed kid to all but help with that task by insisting that he would be fine sticking around the house with them.

"So," his wife started as they all sat down after Koshiro had left. "Is there a problem with the digital world?"

"Oh good, you know about it," the kid responded, looking incredibly relieved. "I was starting to worry that he was keeping it from you for some strange reason. Would it be possible for me to let my team out? They could help me explain a lot easier."

That was the last thing Masami had expected for a reaction. "What do you mean 'let out' your team?" he asked cautiously at the calm agreement.

"Does this world really not have any item storage?" Shawn asked, and then thoughtfully shook his head. "Ways to take things and put them into something that has less volume and possibly mass than the things themselves? It is really common where I'm from, so I'm not sure where to even begin with describing it."

"I'm fairly sure that's not how physics works," Masami replied unhappily. "Are you saying your digimon is in something smaller than themselves right now?"

"One digimon, one pokemon, which is 'pocket monster' from how they can be stored like that more easily than some creatures," the kid confirmed with a nod, holding up a red and white ball, and a green and black one.

"Go ahead and let them out," Kae said, managing to sound calm about new monsters appearing in their home.

The result was two white shapes of light emerging from the spheres as they cracked open, revealing that the items were nearly entirely hollow, with them being mostly just a thin shell with a highly advanced looking interior. The light from the red and white ball became a human sized green and yellow snake, with something of a plant theme. The green and black one contained a purple furred dog-rabbit thing with a long cat-like tail that had three belts on it close together. "These are my Starter, Serperior," Shawn said indicating the snake. "And our teammate Gazimon." He then pointed to the rabbit.

"Hello Mr. and Ms Izumi," Serperior greeted them somewhat regally. "I've actually been listening in, the pokeballs can do that but pokemon don't always use that feature. Shawn doesn't usually leave me in mine this long without a good reason, and I prefer to know what the reason is sooner rather than later."

"Hello," Gazimon echoed after that bit of information. "So, how much do you guys know about the current situation in the digital world?"

"We weren't even sure there was a 'situation'," Masami told the creature, a bit unsure if it was the digimon or not. "Izzy has been quiet about things again, and while it isn't as bad as last time we were still starting to suspect it was another problem."

"Unfortunately I haven't gotten the full story from the Digidestined myself yet," Shawn admitted. "However, I do have bad news. A threat from my world, a different one from the digimon world or this one, has shown up there and might need to be taken care of as well. I'd hate to have the kids miss out on Izzy's teachings, but I'm worried it might end up requiring him and the other older members of the group to directly assist."

Masami had to blink at that strange explanation. "'Izzy's teachings' to who?" he asked, uncertain if he wanted to know what this kid was thinking.

"To his students?" Serperior asked sounding confused by the question. "The ones in that class he needed to leave for?"

"Our son is only 13," Kae told the three of them. "He's still in school."

"13?" Shawn asked darkly. "So he was only 8 or 9 when he became a Digidestined?" The kid sighed unhappy with that news. "Okay, I think I can see why he wouldn't be teaching that young, but what kind of school is he going to? And how does that work with his job protecting the digital world? I mean, he was with the others so I thought he was still at least partially working for the Digidestined."

Masami didn't even know where to start untangling that series of questions. "How old did you think he was?" he started with, unhappily.

"A young looking 14 or 15," the kid replied, giving an age likely not much younger than himself. "And that was assuming that he was teaching about how to be a Digidestined to new kids. I might have been up for teaching another Troubleshooter after working as one for three or four years, but Izzy seemed more the genius type to me."

"Working?" Kae asked the young man. "You have a job then?"

"I'm on the job right now," Shawn informed them with considerable confusion. "I've been protecting artificial digital worlds as a career for five years now, since I was 12 and on my League Run." He then moved over to his massive hiking pack, something that Koshiro had not even attempted to explain. "Actually I have an entire list of things to get done here because of it. For one I have to find some way of getting some local currency in case we need to buy things in this world." A small case emerged from one of the pockets, one that didn't look like it could possibly hold the case. "I've got some golden nuggets here for that, which hopefully will work to get me some if we can't manage to contact home anytime soon." The small box was put onto the table with a rather heavy thud. "Thank you for putting us up for the night, it saved us from having to do this right off the bat." The container opened to reveal six good sized spheres of gold.

"I'm not sure that would have been the best idea," Masami told the kid nervously. "Selling gold isn't the most common thing, especially if you can't explain where it came from."

"But I can explain where it came from. Admittedly it is a bit strange to bring gold from another world to a store, but it can't be unheard of if you have to deal with the digimon world," the kid insisted, with the snake clearly agreeing and the Gazimon looking unsure.

"Nobody really knows about the digital world," Masami informed him uneasily. "Actually that's why the children are trying to keep the digimon a secret."

"They're what?" Shawn asked in a cold tone that suddenly made him seem like he couldn't be anything other than an adult. "Why?"

"Because a bunch of city destroying monsters threatening the world is scary," Kae told him seriously.

The young man sighed and stood up, clearly quite upset by the idea that the kids would hide their actions. "Would you mind if I went out with Serperior to see your world a bit more today? I think I need some more context," he said, then picked up one of the gold spheres. "I'm willing to give you one of these for any pocket money you can spare."

"I can attempt to tell you what our side of the situation is at least," Gazimon agreed with Shawn. "I also have something I need to find a place to setup, and if you're willing after hearing what it does, I'd like to ask about putting it here."

"I think that would be alright," the two of them cautiously agreed, then as the young man left they both turned to the rabbit monster.

"Long story short, we have criminals capable of making their own digimon who are possibly now trying to build a small army in the digital world," Gazimon told them. "Which is complicated by the fact that some Digidestined kid has decided to take it over a while back using evil towers. Your kid seems to be helping a new group of Digidestined deal with the bad one, but from what we've seen of him our criminals are the bigger concern."

"So Izzy is going to need to fight again?" Kae asked sadly.

"Best case, we get back in contact with our world and are able to get our own people to take care of whatever Team Upload is doing," the monster attempted to reassure them. "That's what I need to work on. I have devices made from an originally evil system from the digimon world that I should be able to use to contact our home world and get it so we can travel to and from there. Those 'Control Spires' of the rogue Digidestined prevented me from doing it in that world instead."

"I think I want to hear everything about this 'device' before agreeing," Masami said thoughtfully, then realized something. "We just let Shawn leave with a human sized snake, didn't we?" he asked his wife.

\---

Shawn was still reeling from the short talk with Izzy's parents as he made his way around the city with Serperior in the pokemon's typical location resting his head on Shawn's shoulder. This was possibly a mistake, as they were simultaneously attracting attention, and also being given a good sized bubble of avoidance.

Nobody had actually complained yet, and the bubble was shrinking as it became clear that the snake meant no harm to them, so the pair felt it would be okay. If any of the law enforcement members he had seen commented, or if too many other people did, he would have put Serperior back in his pokeball.

The trainer and starter had made their way to a section of the city with shops, after spending a bit too long figuring out that the local plants felt off in a way they had not yet categorized. It wasn't enough to make it so they could not use them to find their way back to the apartment, but it was something important enough to remember to check out in more detail later.

Like the fact that the locals definitely did not have the ability to store items. The various ways people were getting new purchases out of the stores was alone a shocking display, and Shawn found himself incredibly nervous about trying to get anything himself, because they couldn't possibly know if any of the things they made were safe to store if nobody had ever tried before, and he doubted that he knew enough about that sort of thing to use his Pokedex to scan for that information. Likely he would have to wait for them to be back in contact with Janice to prepare a method of checking things.

The strange items themselves are also confusing, but mostly in what he didn't see among them. The general stores seem to be far too small, while other specialty stores the two of them were used to seeing simply did not exist. Both clearly the result of a lack of monster oriented items that only grew more worrying as they start to actually enter the shops to browse. They tried seven places total, all very briefly and mostly just to see what was being sold. Serperior ended up staying outside the shops, nervously apologizing for his presence instead of being more worrying by constantly going in and out of his pokeball. Which worked for all but three that they tried, two that simply said not to enter at all and the third just having the snake pokemon enter with him despite the tight fit.

Shawn ended up buying a tourist guide book from that final shop, both in the hopes that the thing would help and as an apology for the clear inconvenience. It did not look like it would help without a dictionary to translate the differences in concepts as well, or possibly even an encyclopedia set that would definitely need to wait until they could get Janice's help to properly trade for funding.

The first store had been a general one, with a selection that was simultaneously mundane and confusing. There were plenty of things for human use, but every last bit of it looked and felt far too fragile to be worth buying. It was actually painfully human made, with no concern at all for creatures that had hands of different shapes or sizes. The closest it came to featuring non-human users was the packaging of some of the items, which showed fake creatures awkwardly holding things that did not always look like they worked with their hand's layout.

He'd tried specialty shops after that. Two different ones for clothes, both of which had absolutely nothing for a non-human frame, and tended to have things that he stopped handling quickly when he felt how fragile the garments appeared to be. The styles were a mixture of familiar and alien, with both the simple gear he expected and other things with images that were far more detailed than he expected. The more exotic clothes of his home world were nowhere to be found, including there being barely anything that gave a monster theme to the person wearing them.

After that he attempted two electronics stores, but only one let him inside while Serperior waited. The one he did see was full of a mixture of general purpose and custom hardware, and similar software that was strangely enough made so it specifically matched a given piece of hardware. He knew he was going to have to ask A-0 about that practice later, or if he got particularly desperate the development team, because he simply was not used to computers to the degree that would tell him if that was normal or not. Once again everything seemed far too fragile, which at that point was a pattern that did not seem like it could possibly be just poor construction. The most lacking thing here was sensor systems, which they did have some basic ones for electrical signals and a few other properties, but a complete lack of anything for detecting the type of things or a number of other common energy patterns, including ones Shawn knew were important around the home or garden in his own universe.

His final attempts had been a pair of book stores, including both the second failure and the location that had made him bring Serperior inside with him. Serperior had made them spend a bit more time than he had planned in the gardening section, mostly in the desperate hope to find some more advanced plant manipulation techniques of any kind. It also had a fantasy section that was the only place at all that featured any information on monsters. Three books were collections of various apparently nonexistent creatures, but Shawn had never actually heard of anyone making such a thing before so he could not even begin to work out how you were supposed to tell. Then again, he also was fairly sure making such a book in his home world would just tempt an interested Legendary to make them anyway, so it might have happened at one point and then ceased to be about nonexistent things shortly afterward.

The lack of books to care for differing types of creatures, in fact how the store was almost completely empty of them, was what finally made the trip too much to handle as well. So Shawn found the small travel guide, handed it to his Starter right after paying with an instruction to somehow make the paper less fragile, and started them moving to the largest collection of plants he could find. This turned out to be a city park, completely enclosed but still covered with grass and trees.

Shawn and Serperior slowly made their way deeper into the area, until they found a bench far enough inside that they could not easily see the city around them. "There isn't any energy here," Shawn said quietly as they sat down.

"Not a hint of it. Despite being quite clearly alive and well, it feels worse than dead," Serperior agreed unnerved. "I think I managed to get some into the book, but I am a bit worried I damaged it."

"None of the people have any either," Shawn said, and then the pair froze as the smallest bird they had ever seen fluttered over to a nearby tree. They barely breathed at the presence of the fragile creature, which was soon joined by three others. The small animals moved around their entire clearing, including landing on the petrified pair a couple of times, sensing that the trainer and pokemon were completely without any desire to harm them.

A few minutes later the birds flew off as someone walked down the path, looked at the pair, and then continued down the path considerably faster. "Serp, I'm fairly sure we could destroy this entire city without trying too hard," Shawn said slightly depressed.

"It's a big city, Shawn. I think we'd need to evolve to pull that off," Serperior countered. "A good sized portion of it though, that we can do."

"I meant by making some plants that actually had energy, ones that would overrun the place in record time," the trainer said unhappily. "I don't think I like this world very much."

\---

Gazimon was fairly sure that he actually knew too much about both worlds he called home to get things right about how to act in this one. The bug's kid's parents had agreed to let him setup a Dark Network Node in their home, along with agreeing afterward to let them use their home as a place to travel back and forth from their own world using it. Gazi suspected it was a plot on their part to insert themselves into this digimon world issue directly instead of just doing their best to support the kids while pretending not to know about it.

"Shawn, Serperior, Gazimon, come in," a transmission came in right as he finished getting the system ready.

"Janice? I wasn't expecting to hear from ya already," the digimon said, attracting the attention of the two humans. They had apparently decided that they really needed to get information on his team, and had stayed home because of that.

"We're on day five over here, Gazi," the Team Lead replied, clearly relieved to hear from them. "Specifically at the point where we started checking to make sure you arrived at the right place. Which you either didn't, or you found their human world."

"Second one actually, and it's been a full week for us," he said, and then looked over at the two humans watching him curiously. "Alright if I let two locals listen in? Parents of one of the Digidestined."

"Go ahead, I want to talk to some people in on that side of things myself," she agreed, and the digimon motioned them over to hear. "A whole week? I guess we should have expected that kind of disconnect in this case." She audibly sighed. "What is the situation looking like? Are you having to deal with that Myotismon guy?"

"He's apparently been taken care of already. We're actually four years after the Digidestined won, so a lot of time missing on that end," the digimon informed her. "Unfortunately some time back one of the Digidestined apparently decided to conquer the digimon world, so that mess is what Upload might have landed in. We're still waiting to talk to the rest of the group to figure out what the full story is."

"We can at least explain more of what happened with Myotismon," the father said unhappily. "I'm guessing this is going to be a complicated story from your side too?"

"You have met Shawn right? Red eyes that belong on his starter and a standard of normal that shouldn't be allowed out in public without supervision?" Janice asked, making Gazimon flinch.

"We gave him spending money and let them walk around town," the mother said worried.

"Gazi, get me over there now!" Janice demanded.


	69. 4-05 Out of Context Enemy

\--- Out of Context Enemy ---

Davis went home unsure what to make of the new kid, his criminal problem, or how Gatomon was apparently a bad guy before. The last one was the part he wasn't sure how to handle, because you just helped out new good guys and beat down new bad guys, but what do you do with a bad guy who wasn't anymore? Apparently that was how Kari, beautiful and wonderful Kari, got her partner. It actually explained the cat's mood much of the time, although she also seemed nicer than he expected of someone who might have hurt people before.

"Davis, do you think Gatomon really was a bad digimon?" DemiVeemon asked quietly, clearly thinking the same thing.

"I think, that she might have gotten into trouble," he admitted to his partner uncertainly. "If she was supposed to be Kari's partner from the start then she must have been a good digimon at first, and probably ended up being forced to work for bad digimon." Having said his thoughts out loud made Davis realize just how horrible that sounded, being forced to be evil when you were such a good person.

"Like how the Emperor is controlling digimon with his Dark Rings?" the tiny reptile questioned.

"No, more like, like what he tries when he uses that whip of his on people who don't have those yet," Davis uneasily replied. "Hurting someone so that they would rather hurt someone else instead of being hurt again."

DemiVeemon's eyes widened in horror at this statement. "Someone hurt her that badly?" the digimon asked disbelievingly. "Then, then I'm gonna beat them up! And make sure that nobody is able to hurt Gatomon anymore."

Davis considered that statement critically, thinking of how the cat digimon generally acted like she was much stronger than she seemed to be, and how the Gazimon seemed to think she was a threat to all of them all on her own. "I think Gatomon can take care of herself now," he told his partner to spare him from the embarrassment of getting in her way. "You should just make sure that no other digimon get forced to work for bad guys, that way she isn't reminded of that kind of thing." It would also be a lot easier for the little guy.

\---

The next day for the new Digidestined was the same old schoolwork, followed by an uncomfortable realization. "Talk about black and white and red all over," Yolei commented about the state of the digital world's map as they opened it. Nine red squares now marked the map, all of which previously black ones under the Emperor's control.

"Well, I guess that must be these 'Upload' people," Davis said, sounding a bit arrogant in a way the others knew was nervousness.

"All of those in just one day?" Cody asked, hugging Upamon uncertainly.

"They definitely don't wait around to get started," T.K. unhappily said, remembering how quickly things seemed to get worse in previous digital world problems. "Did anyone we know get caught in that?"

"No, everyone we know is safe," Kari informed him, not sounding entirely happy about that. "But we don't know what happened to anyone else that was there."

"So are we going to check them out now?" the group's gogglehead asked sounding a bit thoughtful. "I kinda want to see what made the snake guy go to a totally different world."

"Considering how he called the Emperor's last attempt 'pitiful', I'm not sure I want to try that before hearing what he thinks of these guys," T.K. replied, failing to actually copy the cold tone Shawn had used for the word 'pitiful'.

"Well, we can try and just scout them out, can't we?" Yolei asked. "I mean, that can't be too hard right?"

T.K. simply stared at the girl, reminded of the utter failure of the attempt to infiltrate Etemon's pyramid by how the new Gazimon had apparently been kicked out of the universe in the aftermath. Unfortunately Kari looked merely unsure while the other two new Digidestined easily agreed with the idea. "We can try and enter one of the captured areas from one next to it," the Digidestined of Hope cautiously allowed. "But we'd need to be ready to run at the first sign of things going downhill."

"If we're doing this then I agree with that plan," Gatomon said, sounding a bit harsh. The cat digimon had been shaken by the reveal of her past, and was considering what she had done during that time carefully. "Criminals might actually be a bit more on the lookout for people spying than the average evil digimon."

"Alright," Davis said, sounding only slightly upset with the reasoning. "We'll only look and keep a lookout to see if we should run," he mostly complained, but the others were all quite surprised at how it wasn't as much of a complaint as they expected.

"Well, then which one do we try?" Cody asked, looking at the map critically.

"This one has a sector not under the Emperor's control next to it," Kari said pointing at one of the lone red squares. "We can go from there, that way we don't have to worry about any digimon with Dark Rings."

"We should tell the others we're doing this, just in case," Patamon contributed, while giving Gatomon a thoughtful look for her own comment.

"Alright, alright, we'll play it totally safe," Davis agreed, now clearly complaining normally.

\---

The local digimon were terrified. At least with the Emperor they had figured out what he wanted, but now the new creatures were conquering the area he had taken with swarms of flying monsters and massive Champions that used powers that did not seem right. The panicked Rookies of the village had begged the Digidestined to chase away the monsters just moments before.

"So, I'm thinking we should have waited to ask the new guy," Davis said as they left earshot. "Because they sounded like they thought these 'criminals' were a lot worse than the 'Emperor'."

"Come on Davis, they can't be that bad," Yolei countered, clearly having gotten invested in the mission. "Besides, we're just checking things out."

"In that case we should probably stay very quiet," Cody noted, which led to Armadillomon laughing quietly at the embarrassed looks on the other two new Digidestined.

The older pair on the other hand were moving at the front of the group, keeping an eye on the rest of the team while their digimon carefully advanced further ahead to try and spot this new enemy before it spotted them. "Oh, wow," Gatomon said quietly, and her ears quite notably drooped. "Kari, I'm not sure they should see this."

"I'm not sure I should see it," Patamon said sounding a bit sick.

Just over the hill they were climbing was a landscape marked by red crystal fragments that littered the ground and in some places seemed to have replaced it. In the air around these was entire swarms of small red blade like devices or creatures, along with occasional groups of three larger ones that looked more like disembodied claws than just blades. A now red colored base of a cracked Control Spire was set in the middle of a large field, with four much larger crystal creatures and a number of smaller ones standing around it.

"Wha- What happened here?" Davis asked, horrified by the changes as they became visible.

"Digidestined!" one of the largest creatures shouted at them bombastically, as if they had been expected the entire time. This one was one of two four legged and claw armed monsters, this one the thinner more human looking one. "We are Team Upload, and we claim this world, as we have many others before! Prepare yourselves for combat!"

"And now it isn't as scary," Davis complained about the over the top threat. "Seriously, can any bad guys just do things normally?"

"Davis, we had to fight an Elvis impersonator monkey before, this is honestly one of the better ones," T.K. noted, looking over the red creatures critically.

The swarms reacted first, streaming down to form a cloud around the larger foes that was just widely spaced enough to allow them to clearly see the creatures. Then the smaller four legged monsters moved forward at them, clearly testing their ability.

"Looks like these fellas are eager to fight," Armadillomon said, and moved to protect Cody.

The four legged creatures stopped just a short ways off, and then all slammed the ground together creating a large red wave of energy that surged towards the group. The digimon reacted quickly to this by attempting to counterattack in order to block the wave. This worked well enough to clear a space for the humans to safely take cover in, but many of them were only able to attack physically and as a result were partially hit by the blast.

"I think we all need to Digivolve now, or we're going to regret it later," Gatomon said, right before she slashed at one of the closest enemies. This sent the creature back noticeably, and then it disappeared with a red flash.

"Alright then, Digiarmor Energize!" Kari said after a second of thought, as she had to remember that she no longer had her Tag and Crest. She was quickly joined by the three new Digidestined, and after a moment T.K. also used the alternate method as well.

This caused the rest of the enemy monsters to start moving to attack, with the only exceptions being the large floating crystal pillar and the human-like one. Notably the swarms of blades now clustered around each of the creatures, and as the Armor digimon sent attacks off at the foes these small creatures quickly placed themselves into the path of the attacks. The first counterattack thus only produced the sound of shattering crystal, and no hits to the larger opponents.

The small worm or insect shaped crystals then began firing beams of energy at the digimon, the floating rock like ones seemed to produce red glass-like barriers that also began blocking attacks, and the single four legged massive monster slashed at Nefertimon's path sending an energy wave towards the sphinx digimon.

"I'm thinking we should have brought some more backup," she complained after taking the hit with a grunt. Her own counterattack of stone tablets was partially blocked by one of the red barriers, and then shattered by a backhanded swing of the creature's arm.

"I would feel better if we didn't have so many things getting the in way," Flamedramon added, sending another trio of burning spheres at the larger serpentine creature. The response was simply a wave of flames the same flat unnatural red as the creatures, which consumed the attack and sent the blue digimon skidding backwards.

"Then we just need to lower their numbers," Digmon noted, before flinging his drills at one of the small floating stones. This attack managed to partially get through, resulting in the creature once again vanishing in a flash of red light.

That was one of the few actual hits they had managed so far, and the two larger ones were so far both untouchable and hitting hard. T.K. took a moment and looked over at the human-like leader, who honestly seemed almost upset with how well his own side was doing. "Guys, we might need to get out of here," he told the others, attempting to be quiet enough to not be heard by the creatures.

"Now, now. Surely you can handle this?" the only one of their foes that seemed to be able to talk said. Despite this the older members noticed how the enemies seemed to slow down their attacks, possibly to taunt the team.

\---

The message Izzy had received from the new team saying that they had decided to check out Shawn's new enemy made the young genius return home a bit more quickly. He already dreaded another attempt to keep Shawn quiet about things while his parents were there, and the other kid had been so confused over that idea that they had not managed to speak at all about the threat, and how dangerous it actually was. His worst case scenario for what he would find when he opened the door was that the new guy had simply answered any questions his parents thought of truthfully while they were home.

A massive four legged rock monster, an older woman talking to Shawn over a video phone, and a Gazimon working on an advanced technological device now setup in his living room, all while his parents were right there seeing everything, was so far past his worst case scenario that it almost made the others charging into a new threat blind look tame.

"Izzy, you're home a bit early," his mother noted, as if a large red eyed monster he had never seen before wasn't standing next to her.

"Guys, why did I just detect a transport to the digimon world near one of the places Upload took over?" Gazimon suddenly asked.

"They decided to check things out," Izzy said, not wanting his friends in danger more than he wanted to try and keep a secret that so obviously wasn't anymore.

"Gazi, get in touch with A-0. Quagsire's team has been on standby just in case," the woman ordered strongly, getting a firm nod from the digimon. "Shawn, move it. We need you back here now. Put Serperior in his ball so that you don't both have to navigate an unfamiliar city." Izzy felt himself pale at the idea that the massive snake had not been in the device in the first place.

"Got it, Janice. We're on our way," the kid replied seriously.

"Assistance can be provided in targeting team from here," the blue rock monster said somewhat mechanically, as if it was a machine instead of stone. "Location is closer than DSS facility."

"Then get over here, Metagross," Gazimon replied harshly, totally focused on the computer system. "We need to get a better map, I'm going to have to hijack those monitors for this one."

"Did you find the map I made?" Izzy asked nervously, glancing over to his parents and meeting their eyes. It was quite clear that they would be discussing everything, but they seemed to agree that this issue was the bigger one for the moment.

"Maybe the same data source, I'm using a really basic bit of information that those transport systems seem to have embedded into them," the rabbit monster noted. "I'd actually love to compare notes with the kid who rigged that old tunnel to teleport. Excellent work there kid, and in the end well worth it not to report to the old monkey."

"Another thing to keep yourself alive?" Janice asked with a bit of humor.

"Wasn't my job to check that, and I didn't actually know where it ended up at first," the digimon replied. "I was being shoved out the door with the others by the time I figured it out, and really, while you're being attacked is a bit late to find the enemy's hiding spot."

\---

The first indication that they received that said that help had arrived was when a familiar looking fireball slammed into the largest four legged monster. T.K. immediately recognized what digimon had produced that attack, and as a result he felt a bit embarrassed by how quickly he had expected a Tyranomon's attack to be aimed at them instead of their foes.

"It is rather odd to be coming to your rescue, given the last time we met," the dinosaur digimon called out from behind the group, just before a tremor shook the entire area and sent everyone stumbling. "Dugtrio, that was not as helpful as you thought it was."

"Complaints later, rescue now," a large blue salamander said before hitting the ground and sending a wave of mud over one of the smaller four legged monsters.

"Of course, Quagsire," a blue bulky bug-like creature said as it charged forward. Large rocks lifted from the ground around it and shot towards the massive crystal serpent.

A thinner bug monster joined him in the charge, this one sending harsh blasts of water at their foes. Behind this group a trio of brown domes with faces mumbled at Tyranomon's criticism unintelligibly.

"DSS," the humanoid enemy hissed at their arrival, then vanished himself in one of the red flashes that were removing defeated members of the crystal foe from the battlefield. The remaining forces began to fall back now that he was gone.

"Yeah, you'd better run," Davis shouted as the larger two creatures that were actually fighting vanished. Then one of the smaller floating stones took a direct hit from the fired rocks, and instead of disappearing in a flash the creature shattered with the sound of breaking glass.

Most of the new Digidestined did not have time to realize what exactly had happened before a rapid series of red flashes took the remaining red monsters away, followed by a great crashing cascade of shattering glass as the converted and grown crystal structures and terrain around them broke apart. No hint of the enemy's presence remained after this sound, with the area returned to normal.

"Damn," the amphibian said as she moved closer to the group. "Looks like they got away again.” She then sighed as she looked over their team. “Now, what's this I've heard about you all not even waiting for Shawn to explain the basics first?"

"Hey, we were handling it," Yolei complained, although she looked to be unsure of her statement as Halsemon tiredly returned to being Hawkmon next to her.

"I have faced the strength of the previous Digidestined, apparently before they even approached their highest point," Tyranomon noted, as his claw moved up to scratch a spot on the back of his neck bearing a massive scar. "You did well for holding off those Hackware, but you were pulling your blows too heavily."

"I think we can save criticism until we're back home," the thinner bug monster noted. "Unless we are supposed to go over everything here?"

"Perhaps introductions at least? I'm Grant, an Armaldo," the larger one said happily despite giving Flamedramon a look like he was considering fighting the digimon.

"The only one of us with an actual name. I'm Quagsire, the Trainer of our team," the salamander said, and then she pointed at the thin bug. "This is Kabutops." She shifted to point at the trio of domes. "Dugtrio, and I've got the feeling you know what a Tyranomon looks like."

"Uh, 'Trainer'?" T.K. asked the monster, taking note that no humans were appearing as part of this group.

"Ugh, I actually forgot that mess. No, it isn't normal for a Trainer to be a pokemon in our world," Quagsire complained to the Digidestined's continued confusion. "Grant got himself turned into a pokemon because of a complex issue and I ended up in charge."

"Okay, so what exactly is a Trainer?" Davis asked sounding a bit thoughtful, and clearly not understanding the implication.

"A Trainer is a person whose job is to take care of and train a team of pokemon to keep them combat ready," Kabutops explained. "A bit like yourselves if we've understood what the digimon we've met have described properly. Which from the confusion I'm seeing might not be accurate?"

"So, was the big blue bug a human, or is Shawn not actually a human?" Yolei asked unhappily.

"That, is the worst possible way you could have asked that question," Grant laughed. "Both of us were in fact humans before, although unlike Shawn I was very unhappy as one and am glad that experience is over."

"Shawn is still for the most part human," Quagsire corrected with an exasperated sigh. "Trainers are almost exclusively human in our world, and I'm not all that enthused to be our team's."

"Wh- Wait a second, you used to be a person?" Davis asked the Armaldo.

"A human more specifically," Grant said a bit too nicely. "I really didn't care for it at all so after I learned that I didn't have to be one I stopped. I'd recommend taking a break from it yourself sometime, you might have the same issue and not know it."

"Grant, they don't need to think that much about this issue," the amphibian Trainer sighed, and buried her face in her hands. "We aren't about to turn them into monsters."

"Given our track record for that I'm not too sure it isn't good advice," Kabutops complained. "Or maybe, it would be better to say a good warning."

"I'm pretty sure we don't want to try and be monsters ourselves," Kari told the new arrivals with a bit of a laugh. "Thank you for your help."

"Dug dugtrio tri dugtrio," the three domes said unintelligibly.

"Do we want a translation of that one?" Tyranomon asked his teammates, making it clear this was an expected turn of events.

"We aren't making them appologize for not waiting for Shawn to have explained things," Quagsire said to the three headed creature unhappily. "Partially because I honestly don't know how much that would have helped."

"I think it would have at least told us what they were supposed to look like," Cody commented, while the Digidestined still looked uneasy about the idea of Grant being a former human.

"Or how there would be so many of them," Armadillomon added unhappily from where he had moved to stand next to his partner.

"That," Quagsire started uneasily. "That wasn't 'many' of them. It was actually a fairly small group compared to their main force last time I saw them."

"So, when Shawn called the Emperor's plan 'pathetic' he meant it wasn't as bad as these guys?" Davis asked unhappily.

"Shawn has faced some harsh enemies," Tyranomon noted. "Likely not as dangerous overall as the Digidestined have faced, and I hope not as cruel and evil as the dark forces I can recall plaguing this world, but with natures of a dark kind that even the Hackware do not match."

"They seemed to be worse than the Emperor at least," Hawkmon noted, looking at a spot that had been converted into red crystals just a short time ago. "Do these 'enemies' perform some act worse than altering the very land to be like themselves?"

"Things that try and take you over and make you into themselves," Grant said unhappily. "I hope that Upload hasn't gone that far, although even their Hackware wouldn't be as bad if it did it as some of the things Shawn's seen." He then frowned while looking at the same location. "Huh, they left something behind." He moved forward and picked up a small red crystal.

"There are a few more of those over here, near where one of the devices had been," Kabutops added, pointing at a circle of a good number of the small items.

"Be careful picking those up, but don't leave any behind. We should probably continue this back at the Lab, you guys don't mind coming with us for that right?" Quagsire asked. "That way we can give you that big explanation."

"I think we can do that," Kari agreed for the group, looking at the items with caution. "I think we really do need to know exactly what just happened."


	70. 4-06 Contextual Support

\--- Contextual Support ---

The Digidestined appeared in the Troubleshooter Lab with a bit of confusion, mostly as a result of how they appeared to have arrived in an actual version of a mad scientist lab straight out of a movie. Inside A-0, TyranoGazimon, and one of the HardWare-Lights were waiting for their arrival, although they did not have much time to contemplate that before Janice, Shawn, Serperior, and the two adult Izumis all arrived from the other human world as well.

"Metagross and Gazimon are staying behind to get a better map setup for the transfer process," the Team Lead informed her group seriously, and then took a moment to look over the group of humans and digimon. "So, you're the new team," she said to them, clearly looking at Kari and T.K. as the leadership.

"Hey! Our stuff didn't turn back," Davis noted, while Veemon looked unsure about where they were.

"Are we really back in a real world?" the small reptile asked. "This looks more like just another part of the digital world."

"You're in another physical world at least," TyranoGazimon replied with a raised eyebrow. "What do you mean about your 'stuff' not turning back?" she asked as she took out her sensor system to check everyone over.

"Our clothes are transformed into these whenever we go to the digital world," Yolei informed the digimon while she looked over the patchwork nature of the medical assistant. "Also our digimon usually get smaller when we go home."

"Although I don't mind having proper wings while out and about for once," Hawkmon noted with a bit of humor.

"I'll agree with that one, it's kind of hard to think when I'm that small," Armadillomon drawled.

"While that's true it would be a lot harder to hide you like this," Cody replied with a sad smile.

"Hide you from what?" Janice asked confused, while the two parents sighed at the lack of understanding.

"Well do you just have walking lizard monsters coming home with kids?" Davis asked in a somewhat sarcastic reply.

"Yes? The most unusual part of your Starters would be that they could talk, and even that isn't too odd around here," Quagsire responded, also confused by the idea. "Given anyone around here would realize you came from our building, I think you'd be able to get away with holding an entire conversation and nobody would bat an eye."

"Uh, I'm fairly sure that I'd attract at least some attention if people knew I was alive," Patamon said with a deliberate flick of his ear-wings.

"Why?" A-0 asked, concerned about the answer. "You don't look very unusual to me." The Digidestined looked over at the bird shaped polygonal creature, and then thought better of arguing with the floating computer graphics over what 'unusual' looked like.

"Back on the topic of altered clothing," Tyra interrupted the group. "We should have you return to your world from the Digimon World like you normally do. Our own transport method didn't quite know what to do with you, so right now you're sort of still digital for the time being. We'll have to see what Gazimon figures out to fix that."

\--- 

"Most of what I've done with the map so far is based on my analysis of the new Digivices that the younger kids now have," Izzy told the purple furred digimon. The presence of the Gazimon talking with his parents was worrying enough before they explained that the monster had set up a fragment of the Dark Network in his house.

"Huh, didn't really have time to notice there were new models," Gazimon replied thoughtfully, and then adjusted the small pair of monitors he had gotten from somewhere to attach to the device. "Mind if I look at what you've got? I've got some of the development documents on the models you guys have. I was able to find my old personal document storage, and I had copies of all that stuff."

Izzy simply stared at the digimon for a moment. "You have copies of the information used to make our Digivices? From where?" he asked loudly, attracting the attention of the rock monster that had stayed with them.

"Uh, the digital human lab that Myotismon turned into his main base. The Dark Network used to be their network before Datamon took it over for his purposes," the rabbit monster clarified. "Nobody really seemed to pay much attention to how that stuff was on there in the early days, and I liked to look at that stuff." Gazimon then scratched at the back of his head. "I didn't have the first clue what they were saying back then, but it was still interesting to try and figure out."

"You have the files from when our digimon were made," Izzy said with reverence. "Does that include the Tags and Crests?"

"Tags are easy," Gazimon said looking slightly confused. "I could make you piles of them right now. Crests on the other hand are a lot harder." He tapped a few keys to bring up a number of images showing patterns and procedures. "Although I will admit that this process was something Datamon definitely looked at himself. These things started off as a fairly complex material with the right setup to be infused with power." An image of the large stone form most of the Crests had started as moved to the center of the display. "The specific power took some work to get right, and I think the digital humans used nodes of that power to try and help hide that they were making these."

"Why did Datamon want this information?" Izzy asked, although he had a good idea what Gazimon was getting at.

"Probably bait for that trap he got you guys into. He probably had to finish using the Dark Network to infuse the thing while you were arriving to free him," the digimon confirmed darkly. "Good news is that he used the original documentation, probably wanted to have the power they provide for himself."

"Sora's Crest was artificial," the young genius sighed.

"All of them were, technically," Gazimon noted with a humorous tone. "Although it sounds like she got one that wasn't made by your benefactors. Up for showing me what these new Digivices look like now?"

Izzy had not really considered how their partners and the other items that they used were manufactured for them to use meant that the same process could be repeated. The idea that they had used a reproduction of the Crest of Love the entire time was worrying. "I think it should be fine," he told the digimon, and then opened his laptop to show the diagrams he had made of the new models. "Here is what I was able to get with the scanning devices Gennai upgraded this with."

"Gennai? Makes sense that he'd live," Gazimon said with a nod. "From the documentation he was more of a fighter than a developer, so I would hope that he actually had one of the other survivors help with that." The digimon then replaced the images from the Crest development with a number of images relating to the older Digivices.

"He was the only one," Izzy sighed at the somewhat excited statement from the digimon. "So, it looked to me like the new version had a lot of parts lifted from the old one."

"Give me a couple of minutes to go over these in detail," Gazimon replied, looking a bit sad about the clarification. "You should check out the originals too." He motioned for them to switch spots.

\---

"So is it safe for them to be digital?" Izzy's dad asked uncertainly.

"Hold that thought," Tyra complained, and then turned her scanner to the pair of adults from the Digidestined's world. "Shawn, these two don't have any energy," she said to the trainer in a dry voice that said she was not at all happy with that fact. "Not a single bit of it, not even that crippled amount LAS had before we knew she had a medical issue."

"None of them do, Tyra," Shawn replied a bit tightly. "Nothing in their entire world does," he added with a tone that made clear he was upset by this news. "Upload could probably overrun it in a week, if they even wanted such a place."

"Wait, they could what?" Davis asked harshly, with the other new Digidestined looking like they agreed. Kari, T.K., and the Izumis on the other hand simply looked resigned to the idea.

"If it ended up anywhere close to as bad as when the digimon attacked our world before, yeah they could," Masami Izumi said shaking his head. "Although from the sounds of things this 'energy' you're talking about is important?"

"You two are not allowed out of this room on this world until we have an idea of what to actually do about it," the patchwork digimon ordered. "The Digidestined are fine for now, being partially digital has actually given them some defensive energy. Without that." She shook her head with sad horror. "It's just too common here, there are lots of things that humans and pokemon just do that might kill you if you're hit wrong, and nobody will expect it."

"That is a major concern," Janice unhappily agreed. "I think maybe we should get the explanation over with then so you can all get home safely. Tyra, let us know if you need anything special for those scans."

"This one actually does have proper energy," TyranoGazimon noted with a bit of exasperation while nodding at Kari. "Damn, I have a lot to work on here. If they actually had some energy to work from I'd take everyone to Box 201, but it isn't more useful if they end up with default statistics from the trip there."

"Right, back on topic then," Janice interrupted the attempts to question that statement. "Team Upload is the issue we've unfortunately let loose on your digital world. They escaped from their final base of operations through a portal across universes, one that they had not tuned to any particular target. Our best assessment is that the digimon world ended up targeted due to metaphysical associations, although that isn't as important as the fact that a large force of Champion stage digital life forms, along with a good amount of lesser Hackware, and ten Hackware hybrids that form the actual driving force of Team Upload all arrived with unknown intent. One of those hybrids is known to be at the Ultimate stage."

"They have an Ultimate?" T.K. and Patamon both asked with clear worry.

"Hey, what's the issue with that?" Davis asked immediately.

"Ultimate digimon are some of the most powerful in the entire digital world," Kari noted. "Only Megas are stronger, and we've only seen a handful of them. It really isn't a good idea to try and take on an Ultimate without one on your side too."

"What the hell is a 'Mega'?" Tyra asked with clear horror.

"It is a stage above Ultimate," the Digidestined of Hope noted, and then adjusted his hat as the Troubleshooters shuddered in terror at the idea. "Only the strongest of our enemies even reached that one, and I'm fairly sure they all had to do really difficult things to get there."

"You can fight something that dangerous?" Shawn asked nervously, his body appearing unnaturally still in a way that fit his Starter better than a human, and Serperior was in much the same state.

"Without the Control Spires around Tai and Matt might be able to get Agumon and Gabumon up to that level," Gatomon explained. "With those things all around though, we might have an issue if another showed up."

"Okay, that is almost a good sign. I wouldn't bet that Upload can't figure out how to do that too, but hopefully it takes them long enough for us to get the opposite working first," Janice managed unhappily. "Right, let's just get started with an explanation of what kinds of Hackware Upload uses."

\---

"Well that is interesting," Gazimon said while Izzy was still lost in looking at the documents the digimon had on the origins of his group of Digidestined. "Would you happen to know about any Digidestined other than your group with your same model of Digivices?"

The young genius looked up from the small inserts on the subsection tailored to each of their individual Crests. He was not quite sure what the variations were for just yet, but having the detail to start with could prove very useful. "We do know that there are others, and have interacted with some of them. Why?" he replied to the rabbit monster.

"Because these are mostly copied from the Emperor's Digivice, with some modifications by the Digimon Sovereigns," Gazimon said, then moved the screen so Izzy could see it. There was a new diagram on it now, clearly having been made by the digimon while he looked over the data. "And the Emperor's was one of your models once, I can tell where it was altered."

"Someone changed the Emperor's Digivice?" Izzy asked uncertainly. "Who are these Sovereigns?"

"No, I meant that they modified the altered version into something that was a bit less evil in nature," Gazimon replied with a sarcastic laugh. "The Sovereigns are the surviving digimon of the first Digidestined, but I don't know much more than that about them. I can only tell this is their work because it matches a couple of other things I've seen them do. It looks like while they were changing things they left anything that looked useful or they couldn't identify. Which leaves a bit of a problem for us." The monster sighed heavily. "I know these alterations, and I can tell who made them. That thing has been to the Dark Ocean, and has been 'upgraded' by Dagomon himself."

"Dagomon?" Izzy asked, confused why the digimon seemed to think he'd recognize the name.

"Oh, yeah I guess you wouldn't have heard about him either. He rules this- Actually now that I have some more context I can say it is definitely another world, separate from both here and the Digital World," Gazimon explained. "A place called the Dark Ocean. He enjoys corrupting things, altering them into something else. Some of the hardware for the Dark Network ended up taking a trip there to have this same thing done to it."

"So another evil digimon that is out to get us then," the Digidestined of Knowledge sighed. "Great, and here I thought we only had to worry about a kid with problems."

"Actually, Dagomon is. Well, 'neutral' is the wrong word, but it is closer than most others," Gazimon said. "He only cares about the Dark Ocean, nowhere else. As long as you don't mess with that place he couldn't care less about what you do or why. The thing is, if you do end up there he does his best to try and corrupt you, but while it is easy to see how that changes good guys, it doesn't mean he doesn't try for bad guys too. His powers are mostly dark in nature, so it is easier for him to taint things of the light, but he does covet the light, and loves to use it when he can to taint things of darkness too." The digimon smiled cruelly. "Etemon found that out the hard way, sent this pure dark crystal he was borrowing there to see if 'more darkness' would make it 'stronger' and it came back with a hint of light in it. 'Ruining' it for the guy he was borrowing it from."

Izzy considered that information. He could actually think of plenty of digimon who weren't truly on the side of evil, but still were in practice helping evil because of what they did. This sounded much worse than that, but at the same time if this new threat didn't actively cause issues it should be an easy thing to contain. "You said that these new Digivices are just our old ones changed by this Dagomon, and then altered again by the Sovereigns?" he asked the monster, getting a nod of confirmation. "That explains why T.K. and Kari's were able to be changed to this new model, but not why the rest of ours stayed the same."

"Oh, that. That's easy," Gazimon said and looked over to the console Izzy was still at. "You just about found it on your own actually. Those two are a bit different than the rest of you. Takeru," he said with a bit of a laugh at the full first name of the young Digidestined. "Has Hope for his Crest, which is one of the two strongest." The image on the console shifted to the subsection from T.K.'s original Digivice without the digimon touching it, revealing more robust energy connections. "Honestly, the kid's lucky that Patamon didn't die from just evolving given how much power he got to reach Champion, let alone what he'd give for his Ultimate form."

"Patamon did die the first time he became Angemon," Izzy corrected the digimon sadly.

"Ah, sorry, didn't know that. Guess that explains some things," Gazimon replied sympathetically. "Well, while his Crest is the strongest, Kari herself is the most powerful Digidestined." The image now shifted to her subsection, which instead had a number of components to actually limit how much power she could send into the subsystem. "She apparently has more than enough light to sustain the Ultimate stage, and Gatomon is probably lucky she was already naturally at Champion by the time they met. That means that both of them have power to spare to keep their devices and digimon from being corrupted by these bits of Dagomon's work that the Sovereigns either left in or didn't dare take out."

"If it wasn't safe for the rest of us, why would it be okay for the new kids?" the young genius asked unhappily. He could think of several reasons, but none of those were very hopeful.

"I think that it has to do with how their digimon work," the rabbit monster responded thoughtfully. "They don't seem to be as close of matches as you guys are, and possibly aren't as direct of clones of them." Izzy blinked in confusion at the seemingly non-sequitur mention of 'clones'. "My guess is that they think that having them deal with a bit of corruption to start off is better than having something pure good and tainting it too much. Which isn't a bad plan, as the new kids don't have the same experience with a purely light focused device." He squinted at the image. "The core of light, which is something I can't really reproduce, is probably completely shielded in the Emperor's. Here it is partially filtered to not cause it to tear out some useful parts that are a bit dark in nature."

\---

"A Biyomon?" T.K. asked unhappily as they looked over the images of the hybrids. So far they had explained the capabilities and life cycle of the Hackware, which was unusual compared to normal digimon.

"Yeah, we don't know the full story there definitively," Shawn replied. "She started working with them after Datamon joined them, and we're fairly sure she was spotted getting out through their gateway."

"That might be a copy of Sora's Biyomon," Kari admitted uncertainly. "He did copy Sora, although from how my brother described that it sounded like he got rid of that copy." She looked at Gatomon cautiously. "What do you think of these guys, Gatomon?"

"This is the most horrifying enemy I have ever heard about, and the only bit of good news here is that they mostly top out at Champion," the cat digimon complained. "I've never seen anyone with that kind of defense against attacks before, and the idea of a group of bad guys actually helping each other out when they get into trouble is the biggest thing we've never had to handle before."

"Yeah, I have to admit that bad guys who actually like each other is a bit of a new threat," T.K. agreed, still unhappy. "And the fact that I can say that seems rather sad."

"Well we just need to make sure these fake digimon don't hurt any real ones, right?" Yolei asked sounding sure of herself.

"We are still unsure if they count even as artificial digimon," A-0 said, unimpressed with the way she had taken the explanation. "So we are still referring to them as artificial digital life forms, a more general title."

"I'm not sure I really understand the difference," Cody noted, while he inspected the images of Hackware on the monitor screens uncertainly. "But the only ones that are actually people are these 'hybrids'?"

"Those are the ones who are the most dangerous, and that we need to capture," A-0 told the Digidestined. "The others they can replace very easily, and will either resist capture until they're destroyed, or can escape on their own easily enough."

"How fast can they make more of these guys?" Davis asked with interested worry.

"From the captured team members and data files we know that normal growth is relatively quick," Janice replied. "Given power they can easily replace a Dos swarm in about an hour. Then it is only days until a swarm will have a portion merge into a Vir trio. Then it is a week or so for the trio to grow enough to become one of the Rookie forms. After that it is a few more weeks to naturally reach Champion, although they have ways to artificially shorten that time."

"So, we just have to work fast then," Davis responded, clearly reassured by the statement rather than concerned.

"We can't," Shawn harshly cut off the misconception. "They now have a massive world that they can just teleport around and full of plenty of power sources. We don't have the forces just yet to harass their operations effectively, and by the time we do they are going to have enough fallback options to exhaust us instead. The same interference from the Control Spires that gave us problems contacting our world also prevents us from blocking Upload's transports. Our best bet right now is to limit their active territory and figure out what their goals are."

"And we don't know what they are after?" T.K. asked his tone serious instead of accusing. "Can you tell anything from what we've got so far?"

"My first guess is that they can't use your human world to make a portal, at least not as easily as the digimon world," Serperior replied. "Without any energy to start with they would eat up a lot of time and effort just preparing a site that was stable and strong enough for the gateway. So they are likely trying instead to gather a big enough force to hold us off in the digimon world while they break through the Emperor's interference."

"They are definitely trying to hold territory instead of just clearing out the Spires," Janice agreed. "They could do the latter a lot faster, so they probably want more forces."

"But that would take weeks, wouldn't it?" Yolei questioned. "I mean, I guess they already have all of them, but it still takes time to make more, right?"

"The more territory they have the more they can make at one time," Quagsire sighed. "Power generation is going to be their big limit, and if your world is as bad off as Shawn's saying then taking it from the digimon world is their best option."

"So, it sounds like the big thing we need ta do is hit these guys as hard as we can?" Armadillomon asked as uncertain as his partner about the whole idea.

"The plan right now is for our teams to assist you in clearing out any of their attempts to expand," Janice clarified, and then frowned at a nearby clock. "So please, keep in touch with us so we can help if they expand outward again. Now, we should probably get you all home."

\---

"Okay, it looks like the map you found is using this data source, while mine was using this other one," Gazimon noted while they both continued looking over the various pieces of data. "I think I can combine the two of them when I get back to the Troubleshooter Lab."

Izzy nodded, happy with most of the results of the discussion. He now had entire piles of projects to possibly work on, mostly because the digimon had given him a copy of what looked like every document on Digidestined creation that he had thought lost with the attack on Gennai's old workplace.

The thought of implementing any of that himself, of being the one to make someone into a new Digidestined, was both frightening and exciting. He really wished that Tentomon was there to discuss the option with to see if it was as valuable of an option as it sounded to him.

"Also, I think I know why exactly they left some of Dagomon's stuff in the devices," the rabbit monster continued. "This bit here is a gate crasher system, the thing that actually punches the hole in or out of the digimon world. It has been modified to use this other part to gain authorized access to a few of the layers, but there are some that clearly are not meant to be accessed that it can get through to establish a transport connection."

"Oh! That actually does explain a lot of the problems I've been having reproducing that effect," Izzy admitted happily. "I had not considered how it might take a darker approach to get through the blocks that did not respond to authentication."

Gazimon nodded at this, and the large rock monster moved closer. "Other functions available from same source?" Metagross asked in what might have been a thoughtful tone if it wasn't so mechanical.

"Maybe, I can see bits that used to be other dark functions, like an inverted evolution system that isn't quite intact enough to give a quick way to counter that effect," the digimon answered. "I think part of the Armor evolution system is shared, but I suspect that might actually be something that isn't itself light or dark that Dagomon added and the Sovereigns could use. Probably originally intended as a way to still evolve the Emperor's digimon while he was putting out the suppression signal." Gazimon then gave a nasty smirk. "I can also see most of the mind control system here, looks like it was kept and then had another bit added to increase resistance of any linked digimon to the effect. If we need to I might be able to modify that a bit so we can control Dark Rings or even Control Spires on our own."

"I think we should probably avoid that one, for now at least," Izzy said uneasily. The idea that they could have that capacity was unnerving. "It is probably something we shouldn't even tell the others just yet."

\---

"What didn't you want to say to the kids?" Masami Izumi asked after the Digidestined had left, while looking at Shawn in a new light. His casual interaction with the older Janice, along with how quickly he settled into position at one of the computers once they arrived in the mad scientist's lab they were at, had both gone a long way to confirm that despite his apparent age he was in fact an adult in this world.

"Upload would be better off with just clearing the digimon world of any threats instead of holding back," the young man replied unhappily. "However, they also have Absol, and his ability to sense disasters. Which means if they aren't doing something, then they have a good reason for it."

"And you don't think the children will accept that," Kae added thoughtfully.

"We don't think our local authorities would accept that easily," Janice countered without any joy. "The obvious options are all very blunt, but we've seen enough of Upload's previous plans to know if they are trying this hard to look like they are conquering the world, only without actually doing it properly, then they want us to try and fight them for a reason." The leader of the group of monster trainers looked at Masami seriously. "I want to start getting into contact with the proper authorities on your world as well. To try and get the Digidestined some actual support in their situation. Not to mention the obvious point of contacting their families."

Both of the Izumis looked at each other uneasily at that idea. This new group had just caused a massive snake to walk around their home city with little idea how to interact, and they really did not seem to at all understand how the kids were to an extent right about not wanting to tell people about the digimon. "Perhaps it would be better for us to handle the other parents," Kae noted. "We have been speaking a bit with the older kids' parents already, and they might have some ideas on how best to approach the new kids' families."

The various monsters looked at them thoughtfully. "And the authorities?" the blue giant salamander asked, picking up that they disagreed with that idea too.

"There is a possibility that if we told the police about the digimon, they might try and take the digimon away," Masami admitted. "Or worse, try and control them."

This chilled the room notably as the locals processed that honest answer. "Mr. and Ms. Izumi," Janice responded with complete seriousness. "Our world has countless ruins of civilizations that fell into that exact mistake. You do not attempt to interfere with Chosen Ones lightly." She shook her head slowly. "You can aid them, you can try and make it so they aren't needed to keep the world safe, and in the worst cases, you can fight the ones who were Chosen for evil ends, but you can't stop them from being Chosen and you can't ignore that there is a reason the people who were Chosen are needed."

"I hate to ask," Shawn said overly calmly. "But could that be what is actually happening with this Emperor? That one of your leaders or some of your criminals have found one of the Digidestined, and are using them to gather power?"

Masami could feel himself pale at the idea. "It could," he admitted, shaken by the thought of the same happening to Koshiro.


	71. 4-07 Delayed Reactions

\--- Delayed Reactions ---

"Four sites with the Digidestined's help, two without," Shawn noted blandly as he looked over documents on recent minor issues in the Boxes. "I would say we should step things up, if it wasn't for how Upload reacted in those two cases." The Troubleshooters were going over paperwork while they discussed the previous week's developments.

"Which is to say that, while they will fight just effectively enough for the kids to counter when they're around, they basically just run when we get there alone," Serperior complained from above his pile of request forms from the Administrators. "They are barely trying to hide that they are just training the kids."

"Next time you get them alone try and open some sort of a dialogue," Janice ordered. "If their Absol knows something big is coming I'd rather hear it directly instead of being managed." She was in the middle of scheduling calls with customers to deal with a new computer virus that had shown up as Corruption in their Boxes.

"Can I try and give them advice on being effective at faking evil?" Gazimon joked before moving on to his own report. "Izzy is still going over stuff with me, which is helping with targeting and analysis of the current situation. Scans of the Emperor's equipment have been put aside with how Upload is distracting the kids."

"Monitoring of the other digital worlds hasn't shown any issues lately," Light-326 mostly complained. "Are you sure I need to be here to tell you that?"

"326, we are thinking that you guys might end up helping with keeping track of this war we found too," TyranoGazimon explained bluntly. "As for medical, we think we have a way to give temporary energy to anyone who needs to come here from the Digidestined's world. Right now there is a good chance it can become permanent, but Delta 2 is sure she can work out how to avoid that." The patchwork digimon stretched out for a moment. "She also wants us to start looking for someone involved with the Digidestined who has, or can work on learning, their own medical knowledge. So if we can set up an inter-universal paid internship that would be great."

"I can get you the funds, but finding someone is outside my capacity right now," Janice complained. "We both do not have a very good start on understanding that other world, and also still need to be concerned that this 'Emperor' is a plot by its inhabitants."

"On the help front we have the issue of the League Tournament," A-0 informed the group. "It's starting up now, which means a couple of weeks where they need a Champion on hand for the possible trial to see if we get a new one. So good news is that we might end up with a new Champion who doesn't have any previous issues to deal with soon enough. Bad news is that the region is already down one Champion more than usual until the Tournament winner either becomes a new Champion, or gives up for now."

"Grim offered his Gym Trainers as help to get the Digidestined into shape," Quagsire contributed while looking at various agreements regarding the monitoring of non-Box digital worlds. "Can somebody help me out with these? I'm fairly sure there is some sort of trap in these contracts, and that makes me wonder how many I've missed in the rest of the stack."

"We can provide some assistance," Metagross noted, while Shawn groaned at the mention of the local Gym Leader. "Reference materials and records of prior contracts are both available for analysis." They then remembered the overall point of the meeting and turned to face the single red crystal object recovered from Upload that wasn't being actively analyzed. "Additionally initial results regarding these items are completed. Devices are equivalent to energy restoring medicine or berries, intended to increase combat operation time of nearby units."

"Artificial Oran berry bushes that can fabricate them to heal any Hackware that aren't outright taken out," TyranoGazimon sighed at the implications. "Which means that they are working to preserve their numbers actively."

\---

Yolei was not the happiest with how things were turning out. The new threat was taking up far too much time that could have been spent going after the Digimon Emperor, the crystal monsters were somehow even worse than the other kid, and their new allies did not seem to be anywhere close to normal enough for her to comfortably interact with.

For instance there was the tiny purse sized bag that they had given her, filled with a set of spheres that could temporarily contain digimon to get them out of danger, spray bottles of some magic medicine that worked only on digimon, and an emergency stash of food and water. All of which fit into the small container without any hint of their presence, but apparently there wasn't any way to put things from the real world into the thing because of the lack of 'energy' that had the aliens so spooked.

"Why can't they make it work for stuff from our world too?" she asked Poromon. "There's more stuff in this thing than would fit on my bed."

"That stuff feels different from things in the real world," the tiny bird chirped. "I'm not sure how to explain." He frowned heavily at his inability to clarify.

"I get it actually," she replied taking out one of the spray bottles unhelpfully called a 'potion'. "It looks like it is made out of plastic, but I've never seen any plastic this strong before." The label had a set of instructions for use to treat wounds, and also on what to do if something went wrong. It advertised '50% more HP restored than leading brand', which was as incomprehensible to her as far as what it would actually do as the instructions. All that it said was that it 'restored energy to boost healing and keep your pokemon battle ready'.

"It is strong," Poromon said after attempting to scratch it with his beak. "I wonder if stuff from the digital world is strong like this too."

That made her pause thoughtfully. "We haven't really tried to take stuff back and forth, have we?" Yolei asked her partner.

"Well, you guys have a lot more stuff than we do," the digimon replied. "This city is just full of stuff."

"You're just trying to get me to take you into the store again, aren't you?" Yolei asked cautiously.

\---

Ken looked unhappily at the map display. After a week of rapid work he finally had options to deal with the new threats, but they had still impacted him heavily in that same time. The red crystal enemies had taken five more sectors successfully, and six more locations where they were then chased off by the Digidestined. The only bright spot was that the other kids were clearly against both himself and this new threat, and he currently looked enough like the lesser threat to have been spared their added interference in his plans.

"Have you found a way to stop them, Ken?" Wormmon asked, the small digimon having grown more and more worried during that time. Ken was honestly allowing the creature to use his name mostly in the hope that he didn't break anything by being even more upset, and feeling rather strange about the concession.

"There are options I am pursuing," he said grandly, and brought up a display of one of his Control Spires. "Using the equipment I have for Spire manufacture to instead produce artificial digimon. Ones loyal to my rule even outside of the range of a Spire."

The digimon had the torn expression that had become so common lately. "So, you can use these instead of normal digimon?" Wormmon asked, sounding a bit hopeful about that change.

"When the project is completed," he admitted, wondering if he should have held off on that now that he saw how it did not in fact help with the mood of his only truly loyal minion. "For now there are other things that will make our current forces less vulnerable while we build up stronger."

"Oh. Is there any way that I can help get things ready faster?" Wormmon asked unhappily, clearly well aware that he could not.

"That project still requires a few kinks to be worked out first regarding the conversion from tower to digimon," Ken informed the digimon. "Right now we have two things that I can start immediately." He pressed another button, and a slight uneasy feeling enveloped them. "The first is an expansion of the Control Spires' effects, in order to reduce the power of anything within their area. With that those tiny fragments of crystal will not have the strength to break through my Dark Rings, and it will be harder for the Digidestined to do so as well." Wormmon looked happier about that, until he mentioned the other kids and the torn expression returned.

"Will that make the controlled digimon weaker too?" the digimon asked after a moment, clearly having considered just what to ask as a question.

"No, it will not affect any digimon with one of my Dark Rings," Ken informed the digimon. "Although, I'm not sure how to keep it from affecting you right now. I was thinking you would be best placed here, to command while I'm not in the digital world."

"Alright, if you think that's best," Wormmon agreed blandly.

\---

"What was the other thing we could do now, Ken?" Wormmon asked, still unsure of how to take anything that was happening. He had decided in the past week to fully support his partner's efforts as the digimon 'Emperor', if only to try and help stop the new crystal monsters that were taking over the digital world.

"The other option I can implement immediately," Ken replied once again speaking grandly, and then brought up an image of what looked like a pair of Dark Rings connected at multiple points along their edges. "This is a reinforced version of the Dark Ring, one that will withstand far more damage than the standard models. With it a digimon should be able to fight more effectively without risk of the control being lost, and they will be able to function for a much wider area around any given Control Spire." He then frowned. "Unfortunately, these take over three times the materials to produce. Before that seemed like a waste of resources, especially given that they are no better at controlling stronger digimon, but now that we have an actual threat I have to at least make some teams of digimon that use these instead in order to take new territory without being countered by these crystals."

Wormmon considered that concept, and thought the worst part of it was that this was something he had all but asked his partner to make. They needed to get digimon that could fight off these horrors into places that they didn't already control, and he did not want Ken at risk while doing that. "I'll start checking our forces to see who would be the strongest we could give them to," he said with a collected voice that sounded alien and evil to his own ears.

Ken paused at his statement, looking slightly shocked. "That would be excellent, Wormmon," the human said, clearly trying to cover up the loss of composure. Which only made everything worse, as it meant that he'd gone so far to the evil side that even Ken's goodness could see it and react from wherever it was hidden. "My biggest priority right now is protecting and expanding the production facilities. You can start the search around these locations," he continued after a moment, highlighting several squares of the map with flashing black borders.

"Alright, Ken. I'll start there," the digimon said with a nod, feeling like he'd failed already.

\---

"So, there's another problem in the digital world," Hiroaki Ishida stated calmly as he sat down for dinner with his eldest son.

"Yeah," Matt replied tiredly. "We thought it wasn't actually that big of a deal, but it looks like things are just getting worse again."

"Do you need any help?" the elder Ishida asked calmly.

"How. How did you handle not being able to help out last time?" the Digidestined of Friendship asked. "There are these three new kids who are doing everything with T.K. and Kari, but the rest of us have been basically stuck at home because of how everything turned out."

Hiroaki considered the question thoughtfully for a moment. "Well, I'd say if you can't go with them to help, then the best thing to try is to see what else you can do in order to help out," he advised pointedly.

"Ah, right. I guess we can try and find a way to make sure their digimon are getting enough to eat," Matt said while he still thought about the problem. "It should be a lot easier for them since they aren't hunting around for food in the middle of nowhere, so they shouldn't have as many hungry nights." It was only after he finished speaking that he realized what he had just admitted to his father.

"I'm not sure you've ever really explained just how long you were there," his father said, still sounding calm but looking a bit too serious. "A part of me is worried about the answer, but that doesn't mean I don't approve of what you all did, and what you're still doing."

"Yeah, but it was supposed to be over with," Matt said quietly. "I thought we'd be able to just go back to normal lives. Now there is this new problem, and a whole new world is involved somehow too. I'm worried that it isn't even going to actually be over when this is done either."

"It might not," Hiroaki admitted. "I, for one, would not be that upset if you ended up just protecting the digital world from problems. I'm sure there has to be some way to make money doing that."

"Dad, who is going to pay us for protecting another world?" the Digidestined sighed with a smile.

"You can ask the digimon to help out," his father joked. "They can give you stuff that you sell over here."

\---

Joe's father cornered him after school with a question. "Do digimon need doctors?" he asked, clearly somehow aware that there was another problem with the digital world. "Or do they not use medicine?"

"It seemed like they had medicine, and they probably have to have some digimon that are doctors," Joe replied cautiously, unsure where the conversation was heading.

"Could you make money doing that? Being a doctor over in that other world?" the elder Kido asked thoughtfully.

Joe unfortunately immediately thought of his time being forced to work for a restaurant endlessly. "Well, I know that there are some digimon that use money to buy things from each other," he allowed. "I'm not sure how exactly medicine works for them."

"Can you possibly look into that? From the sounds of things it isn't a common job, so there should be good money there," his father questioned.

Joe wanted to sigh at the idea, which seemed to be to have him become not just a good doctor, but a major doctor of an entire alternate world. "I'll see if I can find out," he said instead, and decided that he'd make Izzy find him an answer.

\---

"So you just got distracted before you could let the rest of us know that you found someone new?" Tai asked, with a frown at the sound of Tentomon in the middle of a discussion with Izzy's parents in the other room.

"Sorry, Tai. I didn't think it would end up this big of a deal," the Digidestined of Knowledge sighed. "I really didn't expect that a new world would end up involved in this."

"I'll admit that was a surprise, but I'm a bit more concerned with my parents asking if Gatomon liked cat food," the original leader of the team noted unhappily. "Not that they weren't already letting Kari take extra food to her room, but now they're being a bit more obvious in how they know something is up." He sighed himself, and ran a hand though his hair. "How bad is it actually? Kari has explained that the fights so far against these thieves are tough, but I want to hear the big picture."

"Well, I'm a lot more worried about them," Izzy said bluntly. "They can make digimon, Tai. Just manufacture them whenever they want. With how easily they're getting their forces out of the battles so far we're looking at being overwhelmed if we give them enough time."

"Are the digimon they're making any good?" Tai asked, his own mind considering how the quality of enemies had varied greatly during their original adventure.

"The basic ones seem to only exist to die taking hits for the others, but the most advanced ones can do things I've never really seen a digimon do before," the young genius noted, then looked thoughtful. "Actually, that's not quite true. Wizardmon was able to do a few similar things, just not as easily as these 'Hackware'."

"'Hackware'? Wow, they even sound bad," Tai said with a shake of his head. "Can we stop them?"

"Honestly? I think so. The new team has been getting better at taking them out before they can escape, and it sounds like this other world will be helping out if things get much worse," Izzy replied, although not as happily as his words would indicate. "The only downside is that I'm worried about how the new kids are handling killing digimon."

"Davis looks like he's taking that seriously enough to me," the former gogglehead noted. "Am I missing something there?"

"Davis is actually fine, which is a bit unusual all things considered, but the other two seem to be having issues," Izzy replied with a deep frown. "Yolei insists on calling them 'fake digimon', and from how she's spoken about it I'm not sure she understands that they are still living creatures. Cody seems to mostly be going along with her on that, and possibly is deliberately ignoring any indications otherwise."

"I get what you mean there. As much as I hoped they didn't have to go through needing to take out evil digimon, we're here now," Tai agreed unhappily. "Is the fact that they are making these things instead of just recruiting them important?"

"The new world's Gazimon was able to get me the files on how Gennai made our Digivices and stuff," Izzy responded seriously. "Including how they made our digimon. Which means that our partners are possibly just as 'fake' as she's saying these new enemies are." The young genius shifted nervously after giving that revelation.

"Is there something else about what was in those files that's bugging you?" Tai asked with narrowed eyes, taking note of how uneasy the statement had made the other kid.

"The biggest concern the digital humans had when they were making them was how to get our partners to react properly to receiving our energy," Izzy slowly explained after a moment of consideration. "In order to do that, they ended up creating digimon specifically for us based entirely on scans that were made during the incident when you first let a Greymon lose on the city." Tai gave Izzy a dark look for describing it that way. "I've double checked the Gazimon's suspicions by looking at both my own data when I'm in the digital world, and Tentomon's data. They're the same, Tai, only Tento's is setup to produce a digimon while mine is set to be human."

"Wait, what do you mean the data's the same? Like, like our partners are just copies of us?" Tai asked shocked. Izzy simply nodded, unable put an agreement into words. "Wait, wait, like when Datamon copied Sora?"

Izzy flinched heavily at that. "It is possible that the copy of her is now a Biyomon working with this new enemy," he informed the former leader. "But I have no idea how to tell her about it, let alone the others."

"Ugh, right we're waiting on that one," Tai said strongly. "Let's make completely sure if it is even possible first, then worry about how to tell the team we might have an evil clone problem."

\---

HackBiyomon settled on a branch of a still normal looking tree in Upload's new main base facility. The various Hackware Hybrids of Upload were gathered for a checkup regarding how they were progressing.

"Making money in this human world is a nightmare," the Shrine Hybrid grunt complained. "They want documentation for absolutely everything, and the situation with valuables is a mess."

"How exactly is it a mess?" Alice asked unhappily. "I would think gold and gemstones were a fairly universal thing, at least once we could make appropriate documentation."

"Gold is even more rare here. It honestly looks like people just don't find unclaimed pieces of it that are a useful size anymore," the grunt sighed with a shake of his head. "Gems are even worse, because it honestly looks like the market is mostly artificial in nature. Industrial stuff can use just any jewels, but once you get into applications that are actually worth selling individual pieces it turns out that much of the scarcity is because of people holding out on the supply."

"Not to mention how nothing there has typed energy," the Wyrm grunt complained, twisting her serpentine body slightly. "About half the industrial applications we could try and sell the ones we have for don't seem to be possible with their laws of physics. Which means there is no market unless we make the equipment to use the things too."

"I was afraid of that part," Alice sighed. "We only barely got the artificial digital worlds set up in their equipment because of that little mess, and we know that the hardware is going to be visibly altered fairly quickly if we push those worlds too hard. Which means we need that money to get somewhere to stash properly altered equipment."

"I can probably pull something off out in the middle of nowhere if we can make our own gear to connect to their overall network along with the power infrastructure," the Shrine grunt admitted unhappily.

"That should do for now," the Architect noted, then turned to look at Bob. "How is our conflict going?"

"DSS can take us like before, but the new kids are being a bit slow about things," the original Goliath Hybrid noted unhappily. "Honestly, at this point I'm half expecting that snake eyes and his group will figure out what we're doing just from how easy we have to go on them."

"That won't be a problem," Absol noted with a groan. The pokemon had spent every day since they started this endeavor fervently inspecting the future for useful disasters, and it clearly was taking a toll. "The illusion of conflict with them is as good as outright conflict, and they have definitely realized that I'm doing something already."

"Does that mean we can talk to them?" HackBiyomon asked, clearly not enthused about attempting that, but considering something related to it.

"Probably not yet, but the thing you're planning would go fine," the white furred canine noted idly. "Also, Anderson, just go ahead and say it, that really is as wonderful an option as it looks."

The Architect sighed dramatically at being called out. "Very well. I have finished my analysis of the Stone, and I do believe it is the key to our victory over these looming threats," he said waving an arm over towards the mountainous area that held the artifact. "Should we have access to all seven of them, we would be able to implement a wonderfully grand method of cutting off those dangers."

"The Emperor kid is getting things in gear," Bob cautioned. "Along with how DSS is helping keep us from expanding effectively, I'm not sure we can pull off another raid on all of the sites without sheer bad luck losing us one to the heroes."

"A distraction would work though," Absol countered. "Make it big enough and that would have them focused on something else, while the Emperor is just now getting started at actually countering our forces."

"I take it my plan for revenge is something big enough?" HackBiyomon questioned with a bit of a smirk. "Alice has just finished getting me the programs that I'd need to do it properly."


	72. 4-08 HackBiyomon's Revenge

\--- HackBiyomon's Revenge ---

Biyomon was in trouble. That single concept had dominated Sora Takenouchi's thoughts for the better part of an hour by the time she reached the computer room to actually do something about it. She wasn't sure if the vibration telling her that she felt from her Digivice was a physical thing, or a sort of connection to her partner, but it was a constant reminder of that horrible fact. "Are we ready?" she asked harshly right as she entered, somehow earning a wide sincere smile from the red eyed kid from another world by doing so.

"Quagsire's team is ready as backup just in case they send a major force for this one," Shawn said with a nod. Sora wasn't quite sure who or what Quagsire was, but the younger Digidestined looked reassured by that information.

"Come on, we got to hurry!" Davis said, echoing Sora's feelings. The more serious looks on T.K., Kari, and the new kid on the other hand matched her thoughts. Taking a moment to make sure things were actually ready was important too.

"They took over the area for only a couple of minutes," T.K. said as he pointed at a new map that had a small list of detailed information beside the selected area. "There is another area already under their control right next to it."

"There have been no transport incidents from any of the nearby areas yet," the snake monster, Serperior, noted about that same data. "So we really do need to hurry," he said calmly and gave Davis a smirk of agreement.

"Let's go then," Yolei agreed strongly, moving forward to open the gate to the digital world herself.

They arrived in the digital world to find scattered digimon, all clearly shaken and telling the same story. The new enemy had not just been specifically going for Biyomon and only Biyomon, but had been led by a large black crystal-like bird that sounded like an evil Birdramon.

"HackSaberdramon," Shawn noted at the description. "She's still only a Champion like that, but she can make her own Dos to protect herself or attack with."

"Wait, the evil Biyomon can digievolve?" Yolei asked, and Sora wondered when the new kids were planning on telling her that there even was an evil Biyomon in the first place.

"Worse, she can also make Rookie Hackware temporarily evolve too," Serperior noted as if that was something to joke about. "Which is annoying, but it only about two at a time along with herself."

"I'm afraid that digimon that can even just evolve themselves like that are actually pretty dangerous around here," T.K. told them as a voice of reason.

"Sounds like these new guys have their own evil Digidestined too," Davis commented thoughtfully. "Can any of the other crystal guys do that?"

"Not that we saw at least," Shawn said as if it wasn't a big deal. "She appears to use a Pokedex, like this one, to assist in the process." He took out a small red device that looked like a palm computer with a folding screen.

They had been speaking while moving towards the area where this new enemy had apparently taken Biyomon, and Sora became more and more convinced that this was another evil digimon leading them into a trap with every frightened digimon they passed that was able to confirm they were on the right path.

"They wanted us to follow them," Armadillomon finally noted as they started to spot bits of red crystal structures along the path.

"And to be in good condition," Shawn said as he plucked a red object off one of the devices. "These can be used to heal and restore monsters to fighting shape, and it is likely that Upload knows that we can use them too."

"Could we use those too?" Cody asked nervously, and Sora could see most of the others to flinch at this.

"We should process them to make sure they are safe first unless it is an emergency, but we can adapt them to work nicely," Serperior said with a nod. "That will help keep potion purchase costs down."

"Please, can we just hurry?" Sora had to question as they approached a large stone structure with portions either covered in or converted into the red crystal material. The very first room they entered was a small empty stone chamber leading in further, and from there they could see the pink feathered form of a Biyomon standing uncomfortably near the far wall. "Biyomon!" she cried out and surged forward into the room, quickly followed by the others.

"Not quite," the bird digimon said, as she pointed to the wall they could not see from the doorway. Now that she was closer Sora could tell that instead of bands of blue this Biyomon had the same red shade as the crystals all around, with those same crystals making up the bird's beak and claws. By the wall that the digimon indicated, chained to it by her leg, was Sora's partner. "I am HackBiyomon," the monster said with pride, her voice and stance strangely familiar.

"Sora!" Biyomon cried out as she spotted them, moving forward as far as the chain would let her, and then glaring at the metal links.

"Let her go!" Sora commanded the digimon. "She hasn't done anything to you!"

"Ha! Biyomon is one of the few digimon who has," HackBiyomon countered. "After all 'That's not the real Sora'," the digimon mimicked the other bird monster perfectly.

"You're the copy," the Digidestined of Love said paling, and took a step backwards. "You're the copy of me that Datamon made." HackBiyomon laughed darkly at her response, confirming the statement. "Why are you a Biyomon?"

"That's an interesting question, Sora. How about I demonstrate what happened?" the Upload digimon asked, and suddenly red lines formed all over the entire room. The next thing Sora knew, she was lying on the ground groaning. "You see," the copy continued, now sounding just like she did. "Your partner is just like me, a copy of you, only without the memories." Sora struggled to look up, and found that instead of an odd colored Biyomon she was now looking at herself from four years ago, only with a red hat instead of a blue one. "So to put it simply, if you take your data, and make it a digimon instead of a human, you end up with a Biyomon."

"Dammit! You broke our transformation," Shawn and Serperior said together, making Sora turn to look at the new kid. Behind her, however, was not what she expected. The kid and his snake looked mostly the same as before, only with their eyes switched. Patamon however seemed to have traded places with T.K., only the Digidestined of Hope was now wearing a different set of clothes more suited to outdoor travel and was missing any sort of hat. Gatomon had apparently devolved into Salamon, but instead of Kari there now was a young woman that looked like what an older sister to the Yagami kids would look like. The other three Digidestined were also replaced by what looked like siblings, and even the digimon looked slightly different now.

Veemon now had a pair of goggles on his head, and a slightly differently shaped muzzle pattern of white scales. Next to him was someone who looked like Davis' younger brother. Armadillomon was now a more brown shade than yellow, and was next to a kid that looked close enough to Cody to almost be mistaken for the kid, but with some clear differences. Hawkmon had purple feathers where white ones had been before, but instead of Yolei there was the largest difference yet in the form of a kid who looked to be her brother, only with white hair.

Sora carefully attempted to stand, and in the process drifted her eyes over to another doppelganger of herself chained to the far wall. Her mind felt like it was running away from her and frozen solid at the same time. She realized with horror that the center of her vision now featured a large red beak, and that her arms were catching more air along them as they moved. She was shaking as she stood fully and looked back at the smirking face of her copy.

"Now, now, Biyomon," the villain said to her, bluntly calling out the change directly. "Don't look so worried. I'm just giving the Digidestined and your partners a week in each other's shoes. Although, I guess the partners are the only ones with shoes right now." The copy then grabbed a red device like what Shawn had shown her earlier that was hanging around her neck. "I'd say this is the perfect little experience to let me have my revenge." She pressed some buttons on the thing, and then vanished in a flash of red light.

\---

"Quagsire is going to kill us," Shawn sighed to his Starter, while the Digidestined all began to panic over their transformation. He then slid his currently serpentine body over to their chained objective, and casually cut the metal binding off of her leg with a glowing green energy leaf. "She's going to just poison us in our sleep over this."

"I hate having legs," Serperior complained, which drew the attention of the others and made them pause. "I hope I don't have to have them for a full week this time."

"You had them for two evolutions, including being born with them," Shawn countered, partially intending to keep the others distracted from their new issue.

"These are too long, Shawn," Serperior answered. "Ugh, do you think Delta 2 will make us switch our bodies back now?"

"Probably not, it's been months now and I'm used to this one," the trainer replied with a smirk, and then led Biyomon over to the group. "Even if I'm not fond of lacking legs when it ends up back to its original shape."

"I'm not sure you two being more of a mess than we are right now is the best way to make us feel better," T.K. interrupted the joking conversation, and then flapped his wing-like ears experimentally. "We should get moving," he then continued with the tone of someone who had needed to run after something terrible had happened before, and easily succeeded in taking flight even if he looked a bit surprised at that success.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Gatomon said, and Shawn was very happy that Serperior made sure to stay next to her as she started to move to the exit. It would probably be a bit before she realized she wasn't as strong now.

"You can't seriously just say we should just pretend this is normal!" Yolei shouted, her feathers fluffing up in anger. "We've been made into monsters!"

"Yolei, Shawn seems to have some experience with this sort of thing," Hawkmon attempted to calm his partner, moving awkwardly and clearly unsure how to properly bend down to be at the same level as her currently avian digimon form. "I'm quite sure they will be able to fix this."

"Having a shell is odd," Cody said quietly, and gave his back a thoughtful look. "Not bad, just odd."

"I think I like it a bit better than not have'n one," Armadillomon said, while looking over his new hands. "These things are weird."

"Let's get moving," Davis said, and then stumbled a bit as he tried to rush forward on now much shorter legs. Shawn noted that he didn't seem to quite manage to balance with his tail properly.

The trainer shook his head as most of them started to shuffle out the door, and then turned to Sora and Biyomon. The two were looking at each other with a bit of horror. "It will be okay," he said to them.

\---

TyranoGazimon gave them all a very dark look as she appeared in a clearing back in the adjacent area. "The entire group, Shawn?" she asked tiredly.

"Yeah," the snake pokemon sighed. "Can we get everyone to Box 201 safely to figure this out, Tyra?"

"Give me a few minutes to check first," she replied, and then looked out over the group. "Alright everyone! We are not taking you back through using the method you got here with, because we do not know how the alteration that causes will affect you. I will be scanning each of you individually to make sure there are no glaring issues, then once everyone is clear we will move everyone to another digital world with proper medical equipment to do more detailed scans, and hopefully also with what we need to restore everyone to normal."

"I'm not sure I like knowing how old I'd be if I was human," Gatomon said, looking over her body. "I look Joe's age."

"You look like my big sister," Kari said somewhat happily. "I think that works nicely." The Salamon was thoughtfully looking at her new tail, and seemed a bit distracted.

"I'm not sure I want another sibling," Yolei complained harshly. The new Hawkmon was sitting on the ground curled into an angry ball of fluffed up feathers.

"Yolei," her partner replied, hurt by the implication. He looked the most uncomfortable out of all the now human members of the group, although it was unclear if that was because of his own feelings or just a reaction to how his partner was taking the events.

T.K. sighed at this display from the top of Patamon's head. "Well, this is the strangest thing to happen to me, and that's saying something," he told his partner.

"Careful with your claws," Patamon complained mildly. "I didn't get a hat when we changed." The former digimon sighed as well. "This is a lot different than being Angemon."

"It's not even close to what being Flamedramon is like," Veemon complained while Tyra worked on scanning his body. "I don't even have a tail anymore."

"I'm not sure what to do with having one, uh. Can I still call you 'Veemon', or do we call me 'Veemon' now?" Davis asked uncertainly, as he crossed his eyes trying to look at his short muzzle. "And if I'm Veemon now does that mean you're Davis?"

Off to the side of the small discussion Cody was getting scratched behind his ears by his partner. "That feels nicer than I expected," the Armadillomon said with a quiet laugh.

"Ah must admit ta being a fan of it myself," his currently human partner agreed. "Seems greedy to not want to take a moment to show what its like."

"Biyomon, are you okay?" Sora asked her partner all the way at the edge of the group. The pink bird digimon had practically collapsed when they reached the area to rest, and was shaking slightly.

"I think I'm better off than you are," the currently human objective of this whole event admitted. "She didn't even try and hurt me." The former digimon looked uncomfortable with that fact. "It almost was like. It almost was like she thought this was doing me a favor somehow."

"Oh," Sora said dully. She then moved her left wing in front of herself to look at it better. "Maybe she hasn't been changing back into a human enough?"

"More like she couldn't change into a human," TyranoGazimon cut into the discussion. "There weren't any files on your sort of human in the Dark Network that were worthwhile for this little mess, and humans from the pokemon world are actual monsters themselves. Which means that those of you who are human right now are actually in a different situation than anything we've dealt with before."

"Wait, your humans are monsters?" Davis asked with confusion as the entire group now gathered around the patchwork digimon.

"I'm from this world originally kid," Tyra bluntly told the Veemon. "Well, at least all my parts are from here. Anyway, it looks like we at least have a starting point, and Delta 2 is so far confident that we can get you to her Box safely to work the rest of this out."

\---

"I'm going to kill them," Quagsire complained as they planned damage control in the Troubleshooter Lab.

"I was just trying to insult the guy," Grant agreed while rubbing his eyestalks with his claws. "It wasn't supposed to be a real thing for them all to do."

"Upload is going on a rampage here," Light-326 shouted over the connection from the Dark Network World unhappily. "At least eight targets, all at once, and with good sized forces. Do we respond?"

"As far as distractions go this is a wonderful one," A-0 stated with a dark emphasis on 'wonderful'. "No point trying right now, we don't have the forces to stop all of them. Just grab the other Starter digimon and bring them here, just in case."

"We will hold off on more than that until Delta 2 has more answers for us," Janice agreed unhappily. "At most you can evacuate any digimon at your discretion, 326."

"What digital worlds can I use to put them in?" the HardWare-Light asked unhappily.

"Metagross send it list B," the Team Lead ordered. "That should have enough room, and we have short term emergency supplies already setup. If it gets worse then we move to list A, but I'd prefer to keep the fully stocked worlds unused until we have a better overall plan."

\---

The place they ended up looked like an old video game trying to make a hospital. After a few hours of being poked and prodded by a pink polygonal monster it was starting to look rather normal to the team. T.K. was honestly getting worried by that point about how used to flying he was becoming as they waited.

He wasn't sure if he should also be worried that Sora had not tried yet, or if she had the right idea about avoiding that experience. The pink bird digimon had mostly just sat quietly next to her partner the whole time. Biyomon had been trying to cheer her up, but none of the digimon seemed to be adapting to being human any better than they were getting used to being monsters.

Cody was the main exception, with the currently Armadillomon shaped kid actually appearing rather excited about exploring what being a digimon was like. His partner was looking a bit exasperated with how many questions Cody was asking him about that new form.

Kari had been mostly asking Gatomon about her own time as a Salamon while they waited. As far as T.K. could tell this wasn't to take the former digimon's mind off her age, as it was only highlighting just how long she had been looking for Kari in a world where the Digidestined wasn't. Still it seemed to be calming the former cat down despite being a bit of a difficult topic.

"'Davis' is your name, which means it is specifically for you. While plenty of monsters go by their species, generally speaking when you actually have a name you use it," Serperior was explaining to Davis, who was once again considering that question. "Now I can personally say that you don't have to stick with using one. When Shawn was on his League Run we started off traveling with my sister and her trainer. Because the two of us basically stayed the same evolutionary stage as each other we needed an easy way to talk to both of us. I prefer moves that cut opponents, so I ended up with 'Slasher', while my sister is partial to a more coils on approach to battle, so she's 'Strangle'. After we parted ways I went to just being called 'Serperior' and I kind of find my old nickname embarrassing."

"So, I'm still 'Davis', but I can also be 'Veemon' instead if I wanted?" the reptile digimon asked, with both Davis and Veemon looking excited and interested in the answer.

"Well, the big problem with trying that right now is that your partner doesn't have his own name," the former snake clarified. "Calling him 'Human' sounds rude for some reason, so calling both of you 'Veemon' would get confusing very quickly."

"Could I get one?" Veemon asked thoughtfully. "How does somebody get a name anyway?"

"Generally parents give them to humans," Shawn noted, leaning heavily on his partner. "For pokemon they can get one when they get a trainer. Sometimes the parents of pokemon give them too, but they can only rarely talk to humans so that's really uncommon."

"Ooo, ooo, Davis, can you think of one for me?" the currently human kid asked, leaning down into his partner's face.

"Hmm, a name," the current Veemon said thoughtfully while turning aside. "Ah! I've got it. Davey," he declared as he turned back while he raised his arm, which meant that his partner ended up basically punched in the face. "Oh, oops. Anyway, it’s kinda like 'Davis', only with a 'vee' on the end like "Veemon'."

"Oh! That's awesome Davis," the former digimon agreed, and T.K. sighed as he realized that they probably were going to actually go with that.

"So we can call you 'Davey' while you're human, and that way I can be 'Veemon'," the digimon member of the pair declared proudly.

"Oh, but what if we're both Veemon?" the newly named Davey asked. "What do we do then?"

"Uagh!" Yolei shouted from where she was sitting. "You two cannot be serious about this! We've been turned into monsters and you two are joking around about names."

"I'm being totally serious about this," Davis, or possibly Veemon for the moment T.K. considered, harshly responded. "Sheesh, I'm just trying to actually, maybe, just possibly, actually try and see what it’s like to be a digimon. Instead of just complaining."

"We've been made into monsters, Davis," she replied, with emphasis on his name clearly calling out what he had been considering. "We should be doing everything we can to turn ourselves back into people again."

"So digimon aren't people?" Cody cut in surprisingly harshly. He walked forward to stand in front of the brown feathered bird digimon. "Only humans can be 'people'?"

"That's not what I meant," Yolei countered, and T.K. found himself growing worried by how both of the transformed humans were now growling at each other. "I meant that we need to be focused on being human again."

"Well we can't exactly do anything about it right now, so I don't see what the problem is with having a bit of fun while we can," Davis said, moving over to join the other two.

"Children," Delta 2 said clearly chastising them for how they seemed about ready to attack each other. "Before you three get started on learning how to fight in digimon form, would you like to hear what results I have gathered about your condition?" She then paused until she seemed certain that they were listening. "HackBiyomon was not lying or mistaken when she said that you would only be like this for a week, and you will turn back without any action by myself after seven days have passed. This is even the case should we return you to a physical world, so you don't need to stay in a digital world for the duration."

"I'm guessing that there is bad news next?" Gatomon asked darkly.

"You are going to be waiting that full time until you turn back," the blocky pink monster noted bluntly.

"What, we can't!" Davis called out. "We have our first soccer game this Sunday, we're going to be up against last year's champions. I was going to get a chance to face Ken!"

"Oh, now it’s a problem," Yolei complained about the sudden reversal of opinion.

"Why can't you just change us back sooner?" Patamon asked before T.K. could, and he sounded a bit more unhappy with the idea than he thought his partner would be.

"Three days minimum to get a safe process to change you back," Delta 2 cut in strongly. "When I have such a process we would then spend two days trying it out on at most two of you, a digimon and a human, to make sure there are no complications. That's already at 5 of the 7 days, and well past Sunday." Given it was currently Friday that was an understatement. "From there we run into the other issue of just how Upload's digimon hybrid set up the return process. Which will simply trigger after those seven days are up to cause this same change in you all again." She turned looking each of them in the eyes. "Disabling that can't be started until I have a way of changing you back, and untangling it from the rest is at least five days work. You should note that is longer than the duration of this problem."

"And the two of us?" Shawn and Serperior asked together, making it difficult to tell that they had been changed at all.

"Are also waiting until that process triggers again before I fix you due to how much of a mess you've made of yourselves," the pink digimon complained as Janice walked into the room.

"What are we supposed to do about our families? There's no way that we can keep this hidden for a full week!" Yolei shouted unhappily.

"I hope that none of you actually expected your parents to not be informed about this," the older woman caustically said to the group, much to their horror. T.K. was fairly sure that his mother already knew from Izzy's parents, and it was basically impossible that his father didn't think about their digimon interactions. "You have all been transformed, I would not even let people from my world get away with not informing their families about that sort of thing for even just one day."

"Hopefully this time the families don't end up transformed too," T.K. heard TyranoGazimon mumble from just behind him.

"Wait, you can't-" Cody said with wide eyes.

"To be perfectly frank the only reason I have not directly contacted your parents to organize this whole affair is because the Izumis took on that task themselves," Janice cut him off. "They were apparently taking things slowly, but now with this we're doing this outright. I will be going out now to bring your entire group here to go over both this problem and the overall issue, and then we can work with your parents to go over just what exactly is going to happen with all of you this next week."

T.K. frowned deeply at the idea of letting this happen, but didn't know how they could exactly stop it. There wasn't any real way to hide this big of a problem, even if they would all rather at least try to do that.

\---

Toshiko Takenouchi frowned as she heard a knock on her door. She wasn't expecting any company today, and Sora wouldn't have knocked. She was expecting to see Biyomon again soon enough given what the Izumi family had told her about contact with the digimon's world being possible again, and she was hoping that would be sooner rather than later so she could help more directly if the new problem was serious.

Walking over to check and see who was there she could not help but feel unusually nervous. As a result she very cautiously opened the door, and much to her shock found a far younger Sora standing outside, wearing a bright red version of the hat she had taken to the digital world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I believe that the tag about how I don't tend to leave characters the same species makes some more sense now.  
> Also with this chapter the canon 02 plot is entirely derailed, so it also should explain the 'mostly' on "Mostly Original Plot".


	73. 4-09 Informing the Family

\--- Informing the Family ---

The younger Sora looked nervous and uncertain, and on seeing her seemed to deflate with worry. Toshiko Takenouchi wasn't sure how to take this, and found that she actually did need to worry that time travel was involved somehow.

"Mo- I mean, Ms. Takenouchi," the girl said, clearly trying to sound serious but failing. "Would it be possible for us to discuss some things inside?"

Looking over the doppelganger of her daughter carefully Toshiko made a decision. "Alright, come on in," she said with a wide smile that seemed to simply ruin the final bits of false seriousness that the young girl had. "So, who or what exactly are you?" she then asked as she led the girl over to the couch.

"I am the clone of Sora that Datamon made," the doppelganger said a bit bluntly. "It's kind of a complicated story, but my name now is HackBiyomon."

Toshiko had to blink at that name, as the girl didn't look much like Biyomon, and she couldn't see how that had anything to do with a clone of her daughter. "And why did this 'Datamon' send you here?" she asked, and surprisingly got a look of confused disbelief from the girl.

"Sora hasn't told you about when Datamon copied her?" HackBiyomon asked with a tone that matched her face. "But it’s been years for you now."

The elder Takenouchi did remember that time had moved differently for the digital world, so that statement wasn't unthinkable, but it still was not a good feeling to realize that some sort of time travel apparently was in effect. "I'm afraid that Sora has only really told us the basics about what happened to her in the digital world," she said uncomfortably.

"She hasn't told you?" the supposed clone said in a still disbelieving tone. "Oh boy, that is not what I expected. The other Digidestined probably didn't either, did they?"

"We all know the basics about it, although the new kids' parents probably aren't entirely believing us yet," Toshiko said, and she felt that how this possibly villainous individual seemed upset by that idea was quite possibly worse than if she had been happy about it.

"I thought their parents knew," the girl complained with a groan. "I've just switched all of their species with their partners thinking it would give me an hour or so to talk with you while they got that checked out. Not that I'd end up making them try and hide from all of you."

"You turned Sora into a Biyomon, and Biyomon into a human?" she asked tiredly as she processed that statement. "Maybe you should start at the beginning."

"There are an awful lot of beginnings to this. I am a copy of your daughter, one made with all of her memories up to the point of my creation," HackBiyomon replied tiredly. "However, due to damage I now have holes in those memories." The girl took a deep breath. "My creator," she continued, spitting the word 'creator'. "Was an evil digimon that wanted to use me in his own plot for revenge over a battle that cost him his memories. I'm here because I want to fill those holes in my memories, to fix my lost knowledge, and in doing so get the best revenge I can against the digimon that made me." The clone sighed. "So, I'm willing to explain all that I know about what happened to Sora in the digital world, and what has happened to me since. I only ask if you are willing to help me fill the gaps in my memories from Sora's time before she went to that world?"

Toshiko cautiously agreed to that idea, and then listened as the young girl explained what had happened to Sora in the digital world. It was not a comfortable story to hear, even if she already knew firsthand one part of how bad it had gotten after this girl was made. She asked questions to clear up a couple of points where the clone left out details that were not normal in the real world that she had gotten used to, and in the process was also able to get some idea on just what the girl meant by having holes in her memories.

When HackBiyomon got to her actual creation however, it became clear that the girl wasn't misleading her about being Sora's clone. The description of the mild confusion that had happened at that time, accompanied by an unwanted explanation of just how much control this Datamon possessed over the girl's mind, was deeply frightening. Then the story changed to one of someone who could remember being her daughter as she was made into a monster, and then used as a minion with that same mind control, only to be saved by people who were still criminals now.

"If you were so upset by being made into a digimon, why did you do that to Sora?" Toshiko had to ask once she was finished, noting that the girl had not explained what she was doing after escaping the other world, the one that the Izumi parents had mentioned now being part of the current issue.

"Honestly, I was mostly doing that to try and give Biyomon a break from being a digimon, and to distract them so I could talk to you," HackBiyomon admitted nervously. "Also, at this point I'm actually fine with that form. I'm feeling a bit more uncomfortable with being human now than I expected."

"I can admit that hearing that doesn't make me feel any better about Sora being a digimon," she told the clone. Then, with great care, she considered what she was thinking to say next after hearing that story. "You shouldn't do that kind of thing to your sister."

The girl paled, and her eyes looked both hopeful and uncomprehending. "My? I'm not," she started and then visibly stopped, clearly having thought of something. "No. Not sister, sisters," she said next, strongly and regretfully. "Biyomon is just as much Sora as I am, even if she doesn't have any of the memories. I can't accept being Sora's sister if Biyomon isn't."

That was a part of what HackBiyomon had explained about why she was a Biyomon herself. It was also both a harder decision to make, and yet incredibly easy at the same time. "Alright, but you still shouldn't have done that to your sisters just to talk with your mother," she agreed with the correction. When she got past the surprise she found that there was no issue with calling Biyomon Sora's sister as well.

"The new Digidestined need to get stronger, and their real enemies need to be stopped," her youngest daughter argued. "I made it a full week to give them a reason to not fight while we get things ready to stop those enemies' plans."

Toshiko considered that idea. "You're going to be fighting them," she said more than asked. "Even though you know they're doing the right thing."

"We're fighting them so they will get strong enough to do the right thing for us," HackBiyomon countered. "We can't get as strong as the Digidestined, but we can give them an enemy that won't really hurt them."

"Other than transforming them for an entire week," she chastised.

"Other than that kind of hurt yes," the girl agreed unhappily. "Honestly, it will all fall apart if they can't do well enough against us and we end up winning a fight easily. If we pull this one off though, then they will be a lot better off."

"Alright then, I think I can trust you that much," Toshiko allowed. "Now, what questions do you have to get that 'revenge' you're after?"

\---

Janice looked at the strange alien city with a sigh. The Izumi family had been reluctant to let her be the one to contact the various families, but she felt that it had to be her responsibility. She had a small computer pad to operate a map that Metagross had helped her make for this purpose, and the Steel/Psychic type on hand in the case of a major issue.

She was starting with Sora's parents, and while her father was supposed to still be at his job she should be able to at least start with the targeted girl's mother. It was a simple walk through a crowded city to reach the place, although admittedly one with a lot more people with different faces from each other than she was used to seeing. She was also going to be using the communications network based transport method to cross some of the longer distances involved, particularly with getting the Digidestined Mimi and her family.

She knocked on the door, and then heard some shuffling until an older woman opened the door. Behind her further inside was a girl wearing a red hat with matching red eyes. "Ms. Takenouchi?" Janice asked. "I'm Janice Grades with Digital Storage Solutions, there has been an issue with your daughter."

"Daughters," the woman corrected her, clearly trying to make herself use the term. "My youngest was just explaining that." The girl looked quite horrified by that statement.

"HackBiyomon?" the Team Lead asked the younger woman, getting an unhappy nod. "Inform your forces that simply running from us when it is just DSS Troubleshooters will be noticed by the Digidestined soon enough. You should be at least giving something of a fight if you want to keep up the charade of being actual enemies."

"Absol isn't going to be happy about this," the temporary human complained. "You already know?"

"No, we don't, but I unfortunately don't have time right now to coordinate our efforts against whatever disaster he found," Janice admitted unhappily. "I'm gathering all of the Digidestined and their families now to get us all on the same page. You have whatever you needed this week for."

"It will help," HackBiyomon said certainly, and Janice hoped that she was making the right choice letting her go. "And I have to say that I think that your plan might help the Digidestined too." She then vanished in a flash of red light.

"I think she's been around people from another world too long to be as sure about telling all of the parents about everything," the clone's mother said. "Where is this happening?"

"Transport can either be done here, now, or we will send everyone to the Izumi's apartment to meet up before traveling from there together," Janice told her.

"Let me get my husband," the older woman insisted. "We can meet up there easily enough on our own, and you will probably need the time to get the new kids' parents on board for this." Janice hoped that Ms. Takenouchi was wrong about that, but still agreed. So she made her way to another house instead of going to the university to find the man herself.

\---

On her way to the Ishida home she ran into a car apparently having some trouble with a damaged wheel. The owner and a friend of his were struggling with a small complicated looking jack, and were rather desperately asking anyone who passed to help with a plan to just lift the vehicle after they got the device set to a useful height.

"Alright, but let me check and see how heavy it is first," she told the pair uncertainly as they moved aside. Cautiously she leaned down and found a good spot to grab. Then she nearly dropped the thing as it came up easily with only a bit of effort. "Or I can just do it myself. I didn't think they would make cars this light," she commented to the paling pair as she relatively easily hefted it up a good ways. It really was concerning how light the vehicle was, as she was quite sure that a strong gust of wind would flip the thing.

The two seemed to be in a bit of a rush to finish the task, possibly out of consideration for how she was holding it up herself. She was still able to end up back on her way after only a short time.

\---

The Digidestined Matt and his father were both clearly quite worried about T.K. and the others when she informed them, and also agreed to meet up at the Izumi's. Tai was considerably less calm, and seemed to be blaming himself for something when she reached the Yagami family. Agumon was with them, and she gladly showed the family how to use the modified pokeballs to help get him to the Izumi's place without the usual issue the whole group apparently had with digimon being out in the open. Given she couldn't see any pet reptiles around their situation at least made some sense.

\--

The Kido family was rather upset by the distraction, but after learning that Joe was studying medicine she took the chance to note they were looking for an intern on that topic. With that she was able to get them to agree to the trip and unlike the others before she ended up sending them directly. That would hopefully both let Delta 2 get started on checking the new energy addition process, and also see if the Digidestined would work for that job.

\---

The Motomiya family was another story. Davis' sister was almost totally unaware, unlike Joe's sibling, and his parents didn't seem to have really believed that it wasn't just some sort of game. Unfortunately this seemed to be because they had heard about the digimon world before instead of a lack of knowledge, as Davis had apparently been hearing about it from Tai for years before. The idea that the explanation would happen after they all met at the Izumi's house was what it took to convince them. Which left the family on another continent, and the three families in the same apartment. Janice decided to start with the group that didn't require a transport to reach.

\---

On the way the Team Lead found herself walking by a set of vending machines. The names of the flavors made her curious what local fruits tasted like, given some of the odd names present for mixes of rather plain looking berries on one of them. So she carefully got out the small amount of spending money Shawn had passed along for general use, identified the appropriate set of coins to pay for one, and cringed as the button creaked a bit from pressing it just a touch too hard.

The can was very flimsy as she took it out of the machine, resulting in her very slowly and carefully handling it as if it was a water balloon instead of a proper drink container. Before she could set off with it she encountered the issue of the pull tab, which was both oddly shaped and just as fragile as the rest of the container. The device was entirely flat, appearing to require a human fingernail to get under and with no consideration for claws at all. Janice was quite sure she would have struggled to open it correctly in her birth form, and as it was she still had to take it slowly to open it without simply crushing the entire can.

Then she started on her way again, drinking it to find an interesting mix of flavors, but overall a drink lacking something she couldn't quite put a name to. After half the can was gone she was regretting purchasing what seemed to be a fairly small drink for so much money, especially with how little it refreshed her and how much trouble opening it was. After she found it was all gone she simply wondered if she should have just gotten some water instead, because it had not felt very refreshing overall.

The can itself soon found its form being crumpled far too easily into a tiny ball as Janice worked out her frustrations over the purchase on it, and by the time she was at the apartment complex it was to the point where it would be impossible to separate the layers again. Absentmindedly she threw the metal into the air and caught it with her teeth, then began to chew with vigor only Steel types could manage on such a thing.

Janice had already swallowed the metal former-can by the time she realized she was still human, and let out a groan over having eaten metal while she was not a Lucario, again. The crowd around her seemed to have become much smaller for some reason.

\---

Fumiko Hida stood nervously in another family's apartment with an entire crowd of people that honestly did not fit into the room. She had spent the past week discussing the fact that her son had apparently found the other world her husband had been so interested in with her father in law, in a rather thorough attempt to find the right way to bring up that topic to her son. Now something had gone wrong, although from the relatively calm faces of most of the parents not very wrong, and she was going to a different other world herself to actually get a real explanation of everything.

"Wait, this actually is a different world we're going to?" Davis' mother asked as she pointed to the complicated computer system that was somehow related to the way they were getting to this other world. "It isn't just some kind of video game or odd sport?"

"You mean you already knew about this digi-thing before too?" Yolei's mother asked a bit harshly. "Were we the only ones who didn't?"

"It seems to be the case," Fumiko's father in law admitted calmly. He was of the opinion they should wait to tell Cody that they knew until he brought the subject up with them, although he had also not been aware that she had already known about it from discussing the topic with her husband. They had admittedly hidden that discussion from the older man, and Hiroki's friend had not believed her grandfather's stories on the one chance occasion that they had interacted, so her own knowledge was an understandable surprise to him. She felt that they should have let Cody know as soon as they learned about the digital world being real.

"I still can't believe this is actually real," Mr. Motomiya commented unhappily. "We just thought that the blue guy Davis had with him was some kind of advanced robot toy. It wasn't that strange for him to be talking with it, and it did seem to be rather simple when it responded back."

"Wait, that bird thing Yolei has been carrying around is alive?" the girl's father asked with a laugh. "Well that explains why she's been trying to sneak food to it." He then looked thoughtful. "She has been treating it a lot like a toy though, so we might need to talk to her about how to treat pets."

"We aren't exactly pets you know," the bug monster that apparently lived here noted. Fumiko had heard about beetles his size from some of the supposedly tall tales that her grandfather had told her about other worlds, but seeing one was a different thing entirely. "For one thing I don't think I would fit in a terrarium."

"Alright, Janice is now on her way to another continent," a purple rabbit monster said as his image appeared on one of the computer-thing's screens. "The plan is to get the rest of you over here now. The Kidos have come over fine, and we even have little pamphlets on what exactly is going on for you all to look at while we wait for her to realize that time zones matter."

What followed was an awkward bit of getting everyone into place for what was apparently going to be teleportation. The biggest issue ended up being the people and monsters on the other side needing to find a place large enough for them to arrive. They apparently were going to use the cafeteria where they were already planning to actually give everyone the full explanation.

The transport itself was a strange feeling for Fumiko, as if she was being grounded solidly in a way that her grandfather had attempted to describe, but she had not understood at the time. She felt energized as she landed from the very small distance they all appeared above the floor of the large room, her tail swaying slightly to keep her on her feet. She looked around the room, finding that it seemed as if a weight was lifted from her with how the air around them felt. Which made the mundane and simple corporate cafeteria building a bit disappointing, although she quickly noticed that it also looked much larger than normal.

In fact everything and everyone looked larger than before, and she could actually feel her ears swivel backwards as she realized that the most likely explanation was that she was what had changed.

"Fumiko?" her father in law asked in confusion. At the same time another rabbit monster, this one red with a scaly arm, groaned loudly at the sight of her.

"Let me guess, you're Cody's mom?" the monster asked, and tapped a few keys on a handheld computer.

"Yes, I am," she replied a bit uneasily, looking at the concerned faces of the rest of the group. "I take it this wasn't supposed to happen?"

"It shouldn't be possible to be frank. I'm TyranoGazimon, Tyra for short, and I'm supposed to be here to deal with normal medical issues," the now named Tyra noted unhappily. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm actually feeling quite well, although everything is a bit larger than I'm used to," Fumiko replied a touch jokingly, finding that, despite something clearly having gone wrong, she still had not quite been let down from the joy of the feeling of the trip.

"Somehow that is worse than the alternative, why did I have to say something earlier," the monster complained quietly, then looked down at her device for a minute or so while a pair of humans from their destination started getting everyone settled down at the tables arranged along the other end of the room. "Delta 2, our medical Administrator, is going to send one of the pendants we have on hand that lets pokemon assume human form. That will make it so you can at least be human when you need to while we work out what exactly happened."

"This is a common enough problem for you that you just have that stuff available?" T.K.'s mother asked in an interested tone that just barely seemed to keep the rest of the group from breaking down in a panic.

"That does in fact seem to be the case, and I cannot begin to describe how much that I hate that fact," Tyra informed them with blunt annoyance.

\---

By the time they were all set to discuss the issue the shock over Fumiko Hida arriving as a Sandshrew had dissipated enough that the group was able to continue. The Tachikawa family had been the last to arrive, and it was quite a relief to everyone that none of them were transformed by the trip. Soon afterward the remaining digimon partners arrived from being recovered from the digimon world.

"Alright everyone, I think we can start now," Janice said tiredly. "To begin with, we have to cover the details of what, exactly, is the overall situation with your children." She looked specifically at the parents of the newer kids. "They are Chosen Ones," she said in the same tone someone would use to inform someone else about getting a chronic illness.

The Motomiya parents looked somewhat perplexed by the way she said this, with their daughter looking slightly jealous of her brother. Likewise the Inoue family as a whole looked simply confused by what was meant. Chikara Hida had a mixture of pride and grimness in his expression, however his daughter in law actually was mirroring the calm sadness of the DSS personnel that were also present.

"What exactly does that mean?" Yolei's father asked cautiously.

"In this case it means that a group of powerful beings choose them, and created equipment for them to use to save the world of those creatures," Janice said seriously. "Along with that equipment they also created a number of individuals intended to be empowered by your children in order to directly fight." She took a deep breath. "They did this by creating clones of the children, only instead of being human these clones were made to be digimon."

"Wh-Wait, what do you mean 'clones'?" Agumon asked horrified. "That sounds like- I'm not Tai! Tai's a lot braver than I am," the digimon declared, his shock attracting the attention of the room.

"I'm afraid she's right, Agumon," Izzy said confidently. "I've been double checking that information myself, and I can confirm that the main differences are that the digimon do not have any of our memories, and they are set up to be digimon instead of humans."

"This is important to the current issue," Janice cut in bluntly. "Because one of the enemies that the Digidestined are now facing has reversed who is what for the entire group that went on a mission to retrieve the partner of one of the older members." This caught everyone but the Takenouchi parents off guard. "So right now all of the humans in that group are currently digimon, and all of the digimon are currently human. Which means that it is currently quite clear that those digimon were made in that manner."

"So, we have another sister?" Yolei's brother asked a bit disappointedly.

"Actually in that specific case the digimon is male," the Team Lead informed him. "Although, I must note that we are not requiring you to accept these new individuals as being related to you. Our world has dealt with clone issues before, and while many do consider such individuals to be siblings to the original, it is not a universal thing."

The young man turned to his parents at this clarification. "I take it we have to deal with this change with more of these necklace things?" his father asked pointing over at Fumiko Hida.

"Ah, actually Ms. Hida is in a considerably worse situation right now than your children," Janice unhappily clarified. "The Digidestined will be returning to the original species after a week of time, the duration that these enemies set for this transformation. We are personally not used to working with either digimon or humans from your world, so to get a safe way to restore them on our own will already take longer than that, but we are still working on such a solution to be prepared for any future attempts at this tactic." She then cleared her throat. "As it is only expected to last a week I would recommend notifying their schools that they have come down with a condition and taking them out for the duration," she said in a tone as if she expected some argument on this plan.

"Ms. Grades, would your parents have sent you to school as a monster?" Matt's father asked jokingly.

The amusement the group had at Janice looking embarrassed by this question lasted until she replied. "My own situation was a result of a chronic condition that is the result of my heritage, and they felt that it was best that I became used to having to deal with that situation. The Digidestined are unlikely to have that same issue, and are another matter entirely," she said in the tone of someone who wanted others to get something she had been denied.

It took a good minute of awkward silence for everyone to process that she not only meant "yes, they would", but actually was saying that her parents had in fact sent her to school while stuck as a monster. "Wait, so that is an option?" Davis' mother asked thoughtfully, breaking the silence. "Because Davis shouldn't really miss an entire week. His grades aren't the best normally and I'd rather have him in class."

"Wait, he isn't as small as that blue lizard thing he carries around, is he?" her husband asked taking the idea seriously. "Because that is probably too small to be safe going to school. The dinosaur over there is probably a safer size."

"I'm not sure how to take that," Agumon quietly noted.

Janice sighed at this, and missed that the other families were looking at the Motomiyas with considerable confusion. "He is currently only slightly smaller than Agumon. Their digimon have been taking on smaller forms while in your world for some odd reason," she said to try and clarify. "Admittedly three of them are currently quadrupedal, so I'm not sure how well they can actually do schoolwork like that as I've only ever been bipedal."

"Wait, three?" Tentomon asked. "I had thought that it had been Sora, T.K., Kari, Davis, Cody, and Yolei that were changed. Biyomon, Gatomon, Veemon, and Hawkmon are all bipeds."

"Kari is only a Salamon actually," the Team Lead responded. "It seems that they all ended up at the Rookie stage." Seeing that only some of those present understood that concept, she decided it was time to go into a full explanation of the digimon world.

\---

The transformed group was quite nervous when they entered the room, and the sight of all of the people there did not seem to help that at all. Everyone then all quickly broke apart to reunite with their families.

The first thing that happened after this was Fumiko Hida suddenly transformed into a yellow armored monster again and rushed over to look at Cody's current form more closely. "Mom? Did, did you just turn into an Armadillomon too?" the temporary digimon asked in shock at this, while his teammates all paused to stare at the display.

"Not quite, apparently I've become a 'pokemon', specifically a 'Sandshrew'," she said carefully inspecting his brown shell and inhuman features. "It was unexpected, but they had a way for me to make myself human again."

"So, is this normal for them?" Davis asked his mother, who was looking at Veemon critically.

"It seems so," his father answered. "Honestly that makes me feel a lot better about all of this. If they are this confident then it should work out."

"Oh, Davis you look cute!" his sister Jun noted. "And I have another little brother too." She then leaned in closer. "You didn't tell me you were friends with Matt's little brother," she criticized both of them quietly, in a tone that promised future problems.

Patamon found himself being the one who needed to walk over to his own family, and with the added awkwardness of Gabumon being along with them. Given they already had to deal with T.K.'s mother and father both being in same place they did not need any more awkwardness. "Hey, so, I'm actually Patamon," he said to them nervously.

"I'm not sure how to feel about having two sets of twins," Nancy Takaishi said a bit faintly, and the temporary human paled at the implication.

"It's kind of strange, but I didn't really have any problem telling that you're Patamon," Matt said to him, then looked up at the digimon sitting on his head. "And T.K. does really look different from you somehow."

"So, you're Hawkmon then?" Yolei's father asked critically of the transformed bird a short distance away.

"Uh, yes sir. It's good to meet you?" the former digimon more asked than said.

"And you've been that pink bird that Yolei had been treating as a stuffed toy?" the older man asked, to the amusement of his other children while Yolei looked worried about the direction that question led.

"Well, I can't say how you look doesn't make sense, Gatomon," Tai said to the older version of his sister as they started their own family's reunion.

"You were a puppy before?" Yuuko Kamiya asked looking at Kari's current form. "I guess that means cat food probably wouldn't be the best thing to keep on hand."

"I don't suppose anyone here has a medical background?" TyranoGazimon asked dryly of the larger group that remained together removed from the families. She was already aware of the goal of the Kido family, and this topic had mostly been put off by the family in question getting a bit too focused on the pamphlet they had quickly made up to hopefully explain some things. It had turned out to be missing a rather large amount of information.

"Why my son Joe is currently working to become a doctor," said Digidestined's father said eagerly jumping at the question.

"He's hired," Tyra noted in a still dry tone. "Pay is going to be split between our money here and gold until we have a working trade method. It's mostly an internship, and he's expected to continue learning about your world's medicine as well. First job is to take what funding options we have in your world already and find the best set of quality reference materials on the subject we can afford."

"Sora, Biyomon," Toshiko Takenouchi said as they reunited. "I'm glad you're both okay."

"I have to admit, this whole situation is rather strange," Haruhiko Takenouchi noted with a smile. "We have quite a bit to discuss."

The scattered discussion continued for a good hour, with all of the families having the chance to start dealing with the changes, although it was fairly clear that it would not be the kind of thing that was resolved in a single night. "Everyone, can I have your attention?" Janice asked at that point, quieting everything down. "It's getting a bit late, and for you all it is Saturday tomorrow. So, I want to try a proposal by Kae Izumi about how our two worlds could better understand each other, so we could work on these digimon world issues more easily. She proposed that we have a day of watching movies and other media from each of our worlds to try and show more of our worlds to each other." Many of those present looked interested in the idea. "I have a number of films on hand to use for that purpose, and the Pokemon League Tournament is currently going on so we can watch some matches of that as well. All we would ask you to bring is some videos and films that you feel best exemplify your world, although you might want to stick to things that are less valuable just in case anything goes wrong."


	74. 4-0A Cultural Theatre

\--- Cultural Theatre ---

"So, were we supposed to suddenly have super strength after going home?" Masami Izumi unhappily asked as they all gathered late the next morning. "Because that kind of thing was what we expected to happen to Ms. Hida, but for the rest of us it was a bit of a surprise."

"I believe that side effect was covered in the pamphlet that the energy we added to ensure your safety while in this world," Janice replied dryly as she set up an AV cart in the cafeteria. Around them other employees were busy having their own meals, and confusing their visitors with the idea that many of them also lived in the office building. "You didn't notice any changes while you were here?"

"It turns out all of your stuff is also super strong," Hiroaki Ishida replied. "Also you seem to build stuff heavier than we do if that is the case."

"All of your stuff feels like it would blow away in a light breeze," Serperior countered jokingly as he straightened his clothes while Shawn adjusted his own position on the currently human Starter's shoulder. "Although given I'm including some of your trees in that statement, it is saying more about how worried you should be than how weird you all are."

"I think I've finally worked out the power issue enough to safely use their stuff," A-0 told everyone from its position at the edge of the other set of equipment that had been mostly purchased by the Troubleshooters in order to look into the Digidestined world's electronic media. "Although it looks like we might have underestimated the effects of giving them energy. Stuff that actually uses typed energy instead of just having it slowly spreads that to other things around it. It shouldn't hurt anything directly, but we should keep an eye on things to see what side effects there are."

"So, our things will feel less empty then?" Fumiko Hida asked, currently in Sandshrew form next to her currently digimon son. This brought confused looks to the faces of the others from her world, but the Troubleshooters who had been to that world all nodded easily at the phrasing.

"They will," Shawn noted, and the confused looks turned to him. "Although the issues with how things feel and taste should go away as you get used to that." Once again there was a disconnect on this, as Fumiko nodded understandingly while the still confused crowd all took a moment to try and see what was being meant.

The Kamiya family then arrived, the last group to do so, and seemed to be in the middle of discussing the implications of the revelations of the day before. "Agumon, this is a serious idea," Yuuko Kamiya was saying to the digimon. "Even before you were still family, and this just makes it more important."

"But, what would I even do for 'an education'?" the dinosaur asked worriedly. "I'm pretty sure that nothing in the digital world needs that kind of thing, and." He sighed. "And I don't think there is really anything to do in the real world."

"Young one," Tyranomon rumbled with a bit of a laugh. "Trust me that you wish to keep your options open beyond just fighting for your life. I wish that I had explored more back when I was just an Agumon myself, then I'd likely have a better idea what I could be doing now that I'm free of Etemon."

"Well, I can agree with them on that part, Agumon," Tai said to his partner/clone. "Although it does seem like we'd have some practical problems with getting you to be able to go."

"I'm mostly concerned with if the Motomiya's actually try to send Davis to school next week," his mother said after checking to make sure the other family wasn't close enough to overhear. "We're working on getting her away from that idea, but I'm worried we might have to ask what the people around this world do for school. We should be able to find homeschooling stuff for you, Agumon."

"What exactly are we starting with, Janice?" Quagsire asked loudly from the front of her team, clearly to get everyone's attention.

"I thought we could begin with something that shows off typical stuff in our world," the Team Lead said as she finished setting up the cart. "'Heart's Ignition' is a nice romantic film starring my aunt that I thought world work."

\---

Mimi sat with Palmon as the film started. The revelation that she would be that kind of plant digimon herself was somewhat surprising, but actually explained to her why Gennai had thought that they might end up switched with their partners if they went to the wrong world. Cody's mom had turned out to be an example of that sort of problem after all.

The movie itself started off simply enough with the lead actress in a rather normal looking home making breakfast. This was a calm scene, and that didn't change despite a giant green lizard monster with leaves growing out of it showing up and speaking to the actress. From there it established her further as a businesswoman that was too busy for love.

It took most of that scene for Mimi to realize that the woman could not in fact understand the monster, and soon after the Digidestined had to smother a laugh at the realization that it was a romantic comedy with talking animals. Which soon made her realize with considerable unease that the large lizard, that could apparently control plants, was quite simply a pet to the lead actress.

The next scene was one she could almost have predicted, where the lead actor appeared doing much the same, although his pet was even more concerning. It was a massive furry monster that literally lit herself on fire multiple times during the segment, including actually using the ability to cook some food onscreen. Mimi could see the other Digidestined and their families were also uncomfortable with the idea of so casually using open flames like that in a home, while the people of the world they were in seemed to be treating it just like a dog barking loudly, as if it was something mildly amusing to see.

The film continued from there fairly normally for such a thing, and despite the occasional oddities she found herself interested in how it would play out. The most notable thing to distract her was how there only seemed to be monsters in this world, without any normal animals beyond a few birds and rodents. Even those seemed off, a bit too large and too strong looking, and she was sure one of the smaller birds had kicked up a tiny windstorm in the background. The products and money changing hands were also familiar, although the setting seemed much too small of a town for the kind of work the lead actress was doing.

There also were the battles, which seemed to be there to break up the film into sections, and which none of the people from this world seemed all that excited about, even if the boys did look happier about their existence. By the film's climax Mimi was already somewhat dreading the fact that another of those was going to be central to the two main characters getting together. The entire world seemed to be mad about fighting each other given what this movie was showing.

However, when it actually came time for that final match, Mimi found herself noticing something very early in the battle. The fire monster was throwing the fight. So far every one of the monster battles had been fairly serious looking, even if it was clear the monsters were trying not to seriously hurt each other, but now the male lead's partner/pet was making him lose. The worst part of this realization for her was the fact that she could only tell because she had been in real fights before, she knew what someone deliberately holding back looked like, and in a way that meant she was more like these strange people that put a monster fight in a romantic film than she had thought.

\---

"That was... interesting," Toshiko Takenouchi said as she considered what it would be like to grow up in a world where a film like this wasn't some fantastical experience. "You said your aunt was the female lead?"

Janice looked happy about how the film had been taken, which overall was well. "Actually, I might have had a bit of an ulterior motive in using this particular film," the woman replied. "My aunt was actually playing both of the lead females in this film."

That explanation did not make much sense. The voice actress for the monster, as it turned out to be a voiceover instead of a talking monster for once, had a voice that far better fit the creature than the female lead. However, there was another odd part to the movie they had just watched. "The lead actress was never on screen with the fire monster, and the lead actor wasn't with the plant lizard," Toshiko said aloud, then considered what issue had brought them to this other world. "Your aunt can become that fire monster."

"Would you believe that despite everything I've only known that less than a year? The entire film studio she works at has a method of causing that transformation," Janice replied. "I hope that how well we know that sort of thing will help reassure you that we can deal with this issue."

"Wait, those two humans can turn into those two monsters?" Davis asked, clearly being intentional about using the word 'humans'.

"Well, my aunt is a human that turns into a monster, while in actuality the lead actor of the film is a Sceptile naturally," Janice replied with a smirk. "So he's a monster that turns into a human."

Toshiko had honestly half expected that at this point, and felt that just what she had learned of this world so far had already explained the reason HackBiyomon had been acting odd compared to her older daughters. Being around only people who had this experience to go with had probably altered her views somewhat.

"Um, can we take some time to answer some questions?" Mimi's mother, Satoe Tachikawa, asked thoughtfully. "Because I have so many questions after that."

"That sounds like a good idea to me," Hiroaki Ishida asked. "I for one have to ask if monsters that big are really just walking around houses like that?"

"Like what?" Shawn, or perhaps Serperior as Toshiko was a bit unclear on which of the two was which, asked with clear confusion on his serpentine face. "It was just people having pets."

"Pets that can make plants move at their will and set themselves on fire?" T.K. asked a bit sarcastically from atop Patamon's head, both of them apparently fine with reversing their typical positions.

"Yes?" the snake monster replied drawing out the word to indicate he did not understand what the problem was. "Pokemon can be pets in this world." Toshiko was beginning to think that 'pokemon' was simply the word these people used instead of 'animal'.

"You really have your pets fight each other?" Satoe asked with concern.

"This is that 'battle mad' issue again, isn't it?" the human, likely Serperior possibly Shawn, sighed. "From the digimon we've met so far we know that our world likes fighting a lot more than their world."

The entire group looked over at him in response to this statement, as the idea that they fought more than digimon seemed insane.

\---

They decided to try a movie from the Digidestined's world next. There was a brief argument over the one to use, mostly from the Digidestined boys over how another romantic movie would be dull.

The inhabitants of the pokemon world very much agreed that the romantic movie was rather dull, and spent most of the runtime asking incredibly basic questions. Like why the tiny birds were so tiny, why lifting things was supposedly so difficult, how could going outside be that dangerous if they didn't have monsters outside, and what the point of the scene with the look-alike. The last one led to a mutually confusing discussion of how people in the pokemon world simply sometimes ended up looking like each other, complete with a lot of vague references to Officer Jennys and Nurse Joys without actually making an attempt to explore that extreme instance of the phenomenon.

The next thing they tried was a children's cartoon about pokemon training. This on one hand the advantage of being made for young children, and as a result went into some detail on what happened in order to teach those concepts to children. On the other hand, that was not enough to stop the group from pausing after each of the three episodes they watched to ask questions on things that the locals thought were as basic as their own questions had been for the previous movie. Such as an explanation of how many young trainers would collect valuable plants and minerals in the wilderness to sell to stores in order to help pay for their League Run, which led to the more critical explanation that the areas around human settlements were very much under the control of wild pokemon, and it in fact was not safe to go out into such places unequipped for battle.

"That's horrible," Agumon said regarding that fact, which told the Troubleshooters that the humans of his group probably thought something worse about the concept somehow. "You can't go anywhere without needing to be ready to fight? Not just when things are bad, but all the time?"

"Wild pokemon are either protecting their own territories, or looking to get stronger," Shawn noted and slithered over to the large set of windows. "The safest routes are places that humans have cleared for travel, literally called 'routes'. In those areas you only really need to worry about pokemon that want to test themselves against humans. That makes them very safe to travel." The group visiting the pokemon world by this point understood that any of its inhabitants using the word 'safe' were probably mislead about what exactly that word actually meant.

"Although other events can cause groups of them to impact routes," Grant noted. The fossil former trainer had only spoken briefly so far, and a full explanation of his situation was currently something the other Troubleshooters felt was best to avoid. "Groups of pokemon being driven out by other groups, or natural disasters, or not so natural disasters."

"The digital world wasn't all that safe to travel back before the Digidestined saved it either," Gatomon noted quietly, although still loud enough for everyone to hear. "You needed to plan things out, and lots of digimon weren't happy with you going through their areas. It wasn't just evil digimon being a problem back then, and I think fighting those off was part of why I ended up evolving so far."

After that exchange they moved onto a fourth episode specifically about evolution. This was easily the least questioned one of the group, although the newer Digidestined's parents seemed to have some degree of confusion over the idea. With far more people than had been typical able to explain the concept this went quickly. The most noteworthy part of this discussion was how a question Kari asked lead to a detailed description of what evolving felt like from the various monsters that had done so before.

From there they decided to go to a fictional piece from the Digidestined's world, and Masami Izumi unfortunately suggested a Godzilla film.

\---

Tai had not seen a Godzilla film since he started living in one, and watching this one had been uncomfortably similar to the times he had participated in a giant monster battle in the real world. All of the rest of the group had some reference now to what had caused that disaster, and nobody seemed happy to finish the film. The people from this new world were overly quiet throughout the movie, and Janice looked quite serious about it as well.

"Shawn, Serperior, would you two mind keeping an eye on the rest of the group while I speak with the adults about something I just remembered?" she asked them ominously once they reached the credits. "Just the parents along with one or two of the older Digidestined."

There was minimal argument about this from the other kids, with Tai and Joe being the only ones who were going with her. He managed to get into it because she specifically called him out as the leader of the group, while Joe was there as the oldest of them.

"So, what is this you want to talk about that you don't want the kids to see?" Tai's father asked unhappily as they moved to an office quite a distance from the cafeteria.

"The Hoenn disaster," the leader of the pokemon group said unhappily. "Which is hopefully a worse situation than anything the Digidestined have ever encountered."

"I doubt that," Joe grumbled, then flinched as he noted that the rest of them had heard it.

"Given how bad this is, I desperately hope to prove you wrong," Janice said with a blunt calmness. "This is the most noteworthy publically known Legendary pokemon disaster in recent memory. It was also a case of a Chosen One saving our world instead of a Champion getting there in time to stop it. The background on this is that two eco-terrorist groups both had simultaneous plots to awaken the two long sealed Legendaries, and unfortunately they both awoke their targets in the worst possible way." The large display in the room came to life, and then after she spent a moment of finding the right file a video began.

The image presented was from a news camera of some kind, and the operator was clearly hiding in a building looking out over the events. The plate of glass between the camera and the outside world quickly moved to show what was happening more clearly, and for a moment whispered worry sounded from the speakers as the reporter fell quiet on the recording.

The world outside was split in two. On the left half of the screen there was a city bathed in enough light to drown out the colors. You could just barely see that the city ringed the inside of a massive crater with water in the middle. The water on the left was visibly steaming away under the intense, unnatural heat of the sun. The right side of the screen was nearly black, and drowned out by falling water instead of falling light. Dark clouds coated the sky, rivers of rainfall streamed into the crater, and only flashes of lightning illuminated the area.

Visible on a comparatively small island of rock on the left side of the screen was a massive red monster with glowing lines covering its body. It had a broad flat body and tail, with large white spikes emerging from its sides along its entire length. Tai could hear Ms. Hida whisper the word 'Groudon' at its appearance. The creature simply stood there in the blinding sunlight for a moment, and then roared a challenge that Tai could feel in his bones despite it only being a recording.

This challenge was answered by a massive whale like creature in the middle of the torrential storm on the other side, also covered in glowing lines and spots. The deep rumble of this other titan nearly covered up a far more worried 'Kyogre' from Cody's mom.

The red monster then summoned up five massive boulders from the ocean around it, and then sent them flying at its foe. However, these were battered down by the rain, which was harsh enough to make the massive stones fall short of their target notably. The blue monster countered with six massive blasts of water, but these too were all eaten away by the harsh sunlight boiling them away into harmless steam. The pair continued at this stalemated battle, uncaring of their ongoing failures to injure each other. The true danger of this fight then became clear as a building on the left cracked and collapsed from how thoroughly it had been dried out, while another on the right was suddenly buried in a mudslide brought on by the endless rain.

Suddenly a massive whale breached in the center of the battle, and Tai was shocked to see a girl standing on the back of the new creature. She had her brown hair parted into two large sections at the front of her head, and a red ribbon holding that separate from the rest of her hair, along with a fairly small red outfit that seemed to be more for swimming than general travel. The new girl took just a moment to look at the fight around her, and then threw two of the strange spheres that contained monsters forward onto the broad back of the whale. On the left emerged the same lizard monster from Janice's first movie, this time looking serious and dangerous instead of like an oversized pet. The right instead had a massive dog with mostly blue fur along with massive spiky yellow patches on its head and at the top of its hind legs.

The lizard then sent off an impressive barrage of leaves at the red monster, actually striking it and appearing to do some real damage. The dog on the other hand sent out a massive bolt of lightning at the blue one with much the same result. Then instead of a stalemate between two big monsters there was one girl and her own monsters facing off against both of them.

This continued for a short time until something changed in the girl's expression, and she pointed up at the sky and called something out. The camera then panned up slightly to see what she was pointing at, just in time to capture another massive monster arrive. This one was a green serpentine dragon, made of the same plate like scales that seemed to form the other two greater creatures, and trailing glowing yellow lines from a number of fin-like structures along its length. This time, when Ms. Hida said its apparent name she did so in time with the reporter on the recording, confirming that this was 'Rayquaza'.

The dragon gave its own roar, but this time it felt to Tai more like when one of Agumon's evolutions did so in order to protect him, and with the sound the sky cleared into a beautiful clear day. The girl pointed the dragon at the red monster now, while her own two monsters both turned to send their attacks at the blue one. Rayquaza then opened its mouth widely, and proceeded to fire a massive beam of energy down at the red titan until the latter collapsed. The dragon then seemed to need a moment to recover, as the blue monster tried to turn its attention onto the serpentine rescuer, and was only stopped by the efforts of the girl's lizard and dog. A second beam soon followed to stop the blue one, and Janice then halted the recording.

If the Godzilla film was an uncomfortably close in resemblance to what they had faced, then this had been a vision of what their issue had looked like from the outside. Tai knew that he could have done without seeing this, and from the grim, horrified faces of their parents he knew they had to be thinking much the same thing. The most notable thing about their appearance was that Cody's mom had turned back into a monster yet again, and was looking a tiny bit calmer than the others.

"So, was this worse?" Janice asked Joe, and Tai had to cringe at the question as he remembered the fights against the Dark Masters and Apocalymon.

Joe sighed heavily at that, and took off his glasses to clean them. "Unfortunately, while that is one of worst situations I can think of, we have still been through worse than that," he told her unhappily.

Janice simply nodded at that, and then turned to look each of their parents in the eye. "This is why your children are so important. They are protecting your world just like that Chosen One protected ours," she said sadly. "What you did not see there was volcanoes and springs across our entire world both growing more hazardous during that fight. Our entire world could have been destroyed by this revival of their ancient conflict."

"Why were they fighting?" Sora's mom asked looking serous.

"Because when the world was made Groudon felt that it should all be land, while Kyogre argued that only the sea should exist," Cody's mom said as if she was quoting someone. "The two sibling gods both fought over which one was right, and in doing so devastated the still young world that the gods were making. So the other gods called upon their other sibling, Rayquaza who made the sky, and gave them the power to stop the other two. Then the warring gods were sealed away." Everyone had turned to look at her while she spoke. "My grandfather told the story of them, and one of his drawings was of Groudon, who he said was of the ground like himself." She turned to Janice seriously. "Are there creatures in this world that look somewhat like I do right now, but with large brown spikes growing from their backs and big sharp claws?"

"Sandshrew like yourself can evolve into Sandslash," Janice responded, and the screen then shifted after a moment to an image of just such a creature. "Your grandfather knew of such creatures?"

"My grandfather had odd stories about the time before he met my grandmother, and in those stories he described himself as one of those," Ms. Hida replied confidently. "That's why I transformed, isn't it?" she then asked sounding conflicted about the question. "Because I've returned to the world he was from."

"How did he say he arrived in your world?" the leader of the pokemon group asked seriously enough to make it clear that she wasn't sure about that idea. "Was it from a place that was always changing, and was known to be risky because of that, but traveled to anyway because of the promise of unique rewards?"

"Yes, it was. He called those 'Mystery Dungeons'," Cody's mother agreed. "The stories about his time in those were something I shared with my husband for his own tales of the digital world." Her father in law was looking at her with some confusion. "Hiroki believed that my grandfather wasn't just making up stories."

"My mother is from another world," Janice said seriously. "One that only has pokemon, no humans at all, and places known as Mystery Dungeons. My own grandfather turns into a human when he travels to this world, but myself and my mother do not. I will need to ask him to look into things, but your grandfather might have been from that world instead. We do know that a digimon ended up in that world by that process, and my father ended up in my mother's word in about the same way you are describing."

"I think the fact that you already have had to deal with all of these problems is just as frightening as it is reassuring," Matt's dad said unhappily.


	75. 4-0B The Pokemon League

\--- The Pokemon League ---

When Janice went off to go over the reality of the situation with the adults, the rest of the group discussed what to watch while they waited. This quickly led to a return to the pokemon cartoon, where a pair of episodes about common medical items and Pokemon Centers were selected to cover the time.

"So, this energy they're talking about restoring, that's what you gave to our parents, right?" T.K. asked after both were finished.

"That is correct," Serperior told the small flying mammal digimon. "It is honestly so common here that the bigger issue is that everything protects themselves with it naturally. Basically, take what we were saying about how it was risky to go between towns, and then add on that we already are protected by that energy when we say that."

"I like the idea of being able to just drink some water to deal with paper cuts," Chizuru Inoue stated, and then was the first of the visiting group to grab one of the offered water bottles from the cafeteria instead of the good sized cooler of drinks that Hiroaki Ishida had brought. After taking a drink of the liquid she noticeably paused. "Okay, when you guys say 'water' what do you actually mean?"

"What do you mean?" TyranoGazimon asked with some concern at the reaction.

"It tastes, uh," the elder sister started while she looked at the bottle. "Well, it wasn't really a taste so much as a feeling. Is that the energy?"

The Digidestined present looked thoughtful at the question, and then there was a bit of a rush by everyone to try drinking from the bottles to see what exactly she meant.

"Janice was complaining about a drink from your world missing something," Serperior noted as the cafeteria staff laughed at their antics. "We haven't eaten or drank anything from your world yet for reference."

"It is a bit odd," Patamon noted as he tried to remember how T.K. had helped him drink from a water bottle. "Like some of the really healthy food older digimon would make when digimon get sick." The staff brought over a number of small dishes and cups for the various digimon, and the visitors realized that those had actually been in the room the entire time, likely for other monsters taking time to eat there. Gatomon in particular noting a smaller cup with wide holes in its handle that would have worked for her gloved hands rather well if she was a digimon.

"Does all water taste like this, or has something special been done to it?" Izzy asked with a thoughtful look at the transformed digimon's statement.

"Well, it is a bit more usable as an energy source because it is a pure spring water," Quagsire clarified. "Normal water takes much longer for your body to process, so it doesn't work at the same speed for energy restoration as these bottles do. They sell them for a fair price because of that."

"The cost is comparable to a potion that does the same thing," Shawn noted. "The ones we got for you are actually a bit better than normal, although they expire a lot faster. The standard versions are able to last at least a year, while these are good for about three months. You need three or more Badges to buy them normally because that's shorter than a League, and they want to make sure trainers are experienced enough to check that kind of thing if they buy them."

"Generally the reason it is worth using instead is that potions are a bit harsh on the body in the short term," Serperior added, and unfortunately made it slightly confusing for the visitors to tell who was who again. "That's only really a concern if you're doing a lot of battles over the course of several days, so you're probably going to see more water bottles being used than potions in the early matches we're watching today."

"Which we might need to explain a bit better before we start," Janice said leading the adults back into the cafeteria. "We have sort of good news, Ms. Hida's transformation has a clear explanation. She's apparently the granddaughter of a very lost Sandslash."

"Wait, we're part monster?" Cody asked his mother, who was still in her Sandshrew form. "Well, I guess beyond the way that's kind of obvious right now."

"It's a bit of a long story, but one we really do need to talk about when we get home," Fumiko Hida replied happily.

"I'm glad to know that we have a reason for the one who got transformed to be transformed," Tyra complained. "So congratulations to the rest of you, it seems we can confirm for now at least that you don't need to worry about any more monster transformations."

"You know, I think we need a distraction from the good news," Quagsire said to cut off that line of thought. "Shawn, are you up for giving the full League explanation, or will we need to pass that around."

"We should probably not have just one person go over everything," the snake pokemon noted, and then indicated that everyone should sit down at the tables again. "Right, so first off we should start with what we're talking about, since in this past week we've found that neither your human or digital worlds have a similar group. Which either means they are really good at hiding, a bad sign, or they don't exist, a worse one." He then looked at the walls and televisions for a moment and drooped. "And we don't have any actual monitors hooked up to the systems here right now, so I can't get any relevant images ready."

"I think LAS might be able to help with that," Kabutops suggested.

"Alright, Tyra let her know to come down," Shawn agreed. "Right, anyway, let's get started while we wait. The Pokemon League is an organization dedicated to trainers. Pokemon trainers are individuals that create, maintain, and train teams of pokemon for combat. I am a trainer, because my job is primarily to have a combat ready team of pokemon to deal with any issues that arrive. To educate and qualify new trainers the Pokemon League holds a yearly challenge in each region they operate in. Commonly you will hear this called a League Run."

"You begin by going to a location capable of registering you, typically a Pokemon Center, a Pokemon Gym, a Research Lab, or a police station. There you sign up for a Trainer Card, which is your official Pokemon League identification," Grant contributed. "From there you next have to find a Starter pokemon, the first member of your team and usually a best friend." He looked happily at Quagsire, who sighed but looked pleased herself. "Typically these are either given by a relative or the location you signed up at, but on some occasions you will be led by an experienced trainer to try and catch your own with a borrowed pokemon for protection."

"Starting age varies a bit," Janice added. "Generally no younger than 10 or older than 14 for your first Run, although some people do start late for a variety of reasons. Here our League's starting age is 12, which is a bit higher than the more typical requirement of 11."

"That's why Shawn was upset with how old the kids are even though he's young himself," Masami Izumi realized aloud. "You don't expect people to start until after they're 12, and most of them weren't even 10 when they went to the digital world." The older Digidestined looked a bit uneasy about this specification.

"It was, although with even just what I know about what happened it wasn't unbelievable," Shawn confirmed and sadly shook his head. "Legendary pokemon don't always think about that when they Choose people either. That's part of why we do it like this. Anyway, let's get back on topic." He slid down Serperior's human body to grab two of the three pokeballs on his belt. "From there they will travel the region with two goals." He then frowned. "Well, two goals for the League itself at least. The overall goal is to find, capture, and train wild pokemon into a team that can face their opponents in regulated battles. Sometimes you end up getting pokemon from sources other than wild captures, but those are less common."

"Wait, you just go out and trap random monsters into fighting for you?" Yolei criticized unhappily.

"The majority of the time you find pokemon that are searching for trainers of their own," Serperior bluntly replied. "Pokeballs are able to be resisted by their targets, and it is rarely safe to try and capture unwilling pokemon because they will have friends along with them. Also, if the pokemon can't stop you itself, and does not have anyone to help it, then it probably isn't going to be too safe on its own. The wilderness isn't safe for its wild inhabitants either."

"You also need to worry about mistreating a pokemon you have captured," Janice cautioned. "As there is nothing to really stop them from deciding to turn on you. That is why Starter pokemon are somewhat regulated, and are specially taught that if they do get that mad at their trainer the right response is to simply leave them." She rubbed the back of her head. "Well, actually we were told to try and contact the authorities if it got that bad, just to make sure some other pokemon didn't kill them if we weren't around to protect them anymore." A number of people present, including some of the DSS staff, were clearly confused by her use of the word 'we'. "I went through the tests to be one, but didn't like the job so I did not go with a trainer."

"The more I hear about this world the less it makes sense," Yolei's father quietly muttered.

"The reason to build up a team of pokemon is to face the challenges of the League," Quagsire cut in before they could get distracted again. "There are three parts to it, the Gym Challenge, the League Tournament we're going to watch, and the Elite Four." She then turned pointedly at Shawn and Serperior.

"The Gym Challenge," Shawn started with a minor glare at the amphibian. "Is the largest part of the yearly event, taking place over several months. All participating trainers travel the region's Gyms to challenge them in order to collect a total of 8 Badges by succeeding at those challenges." He looked around the group, and noticed that they did not seem to be understanding. "A Gym is a place where a powerful trainer, known as a Gym Leader, trains others in how to handle pokemon of a given type that they are themselves an expert in, typically focusing on only one of the 18 pokemon types. Generally each region has 10 to 14 Gyms, each suited to a different type. Trainers will travel from one town with a Gym to another in order to take increasingly difficult challenges in order to try and collect a set of 8 Badges."

"If you live in a town with a Gym they don't let you take a challenge there until you have at least 4 Badges," Grant added nodding. "And if you got your starter from the Gym then they will probably not let you take one at all, or only if you're going for your 7th or 8th."

"That seems like it would take a while," Davis' mother nervously noted. "How do parents get enough time off for work for that?"

The utterly blank looks she got in response made the Digidestined and their parents nervous. "Trainers go off on their own for this," Shawn said slowly. "This is going off to spend the year trying to see if working with pokemon is the right kind of thing for you to do as a job. A common side effect of this trip, and one of a few reasons that most trainers never get past 4 Badges, is that they find a place to work in another town that suits them."

"At 12?" Yolei's mother asked pointedly.

"Yes? That's generally when you're expected to start acting like an adult," Janice easily replied, and the visitors paled as they realized she was entirely serious. "I've been trying to find the equivalent in your world actually, but most things seem to be for higher education until you're at least 16. It is actually really strange."

"You grow up faster," Izzy suddenly said aloud, looked embarrassed about doing so, then continued. "You seem to have some major differences in how you act compared to humans on our world, and from the way you're speaking now, it really does sound like you as a species grow up faster than we do."

Now the Troubleshooters and other listening DSS staff looked pale. "I hope that you're wrong," Janice asked faintly, knowing that just earlier Joe had been similarly right about something just as important. "Because if you're not then you are implying that you are younger than we think."

"Let's get back on topic," Serperior suggested unhappily. "We can cover the rest of how the Gym Challenge works if we end up needing to. The second part is the League Tournament, which is basically just that, a massive tournament to find out who is the strongest of those trainers who have completed the Challenge and gotten all 8 Badges. Most of the time the winner is not on their first League Run, because trainers can go through another Gym Challenge another year to get to the Tournament, but sometimes there is a really good young trainer who makes it. The whole event typically takes a week to narrow down to one winner, and the preliminary matches just ended yesterday so we're in the early fights right now, when everyone is fresh but also when there are a lot of lower caliber trainers left."

"After that the winner can choose to take on the Elite Four," Grant continued the explanation. "Which is a group of four of the toughest trainers in the region, typically former Gym Leaders or even former Champions. You fight one of them, then after a short break where you can only use equipment and items you have on hand to recover, you fight the next, and so on, until you either beat them all or lose." The Digidestined looked properly intimidated by this. "Then, after one final short break, you get to face off against one of the current local Champions. Should you win that, then you are rewarded with the title of Champion yourself."

"Champions are the strongest trainers in the region, and their job, as in the actual thing they do for work, is to protect that region from major threats and disasters," Janice said grimly. "Their position is like that of a Chosen One, only instead of someone making them take on that responsibility, they work to earn it knowing what they are getting into. Should we require more help, they are the ones we would call on."

"This is how you tried to make it so you don't have to have Chosen Ones like us," Tai said seriously. "You have all your kids go out on a trip through the wilderness to fight monsters until you know the best, all so that a higher power doesn't have to just pick the right kid?"

"Not all higher powers are good," the LAS said, finally arriving. "I am sorry that I am late," the jellyfish monster continued. "There are a number of Legendary pokemon participating in the League this year. You missed a fight with a Mew in it."

\---

Davis really hoped that things would get less awkward soon, because while it was nice that his parents weren't freaking out over him being a digimon, them freaking out because of all the other stuff that the other world did wasn't actually any better. Shawn and Janice had finally decided to stop trying to explain for the moment so they could just watch the tournament.

The arena was surrounded by a massive set of stands that was nearly full of people, but the ground was simply split into four large marked out dirt filled plots in the concrete. "For later matches they will switch out the terrain for elemental hazards, but right now it is early enough that they use just dirt unless one of the trainers is a water type focused trainer," Shawn said as it came into view. "You can see that two of them are really beat up, that means they've been used. After all four have had a match there is a short break for them to get them ready again."

The two fighting were a pair of cute girls, one just older than him and the other about Tai's age. The younger one sent out a large black and purple lizard which let out a smoky breath, but the older girl had a massive pile of boulders that apparently decided it wanted to try and be a snake. The announcer called the two a 'Salazzle' from 'Alola', which Davis had thought was something you said instead of a place, and an 'Onix', which he was sure was a kind of jewelry.

The lizard squeaked at the sight of the massive pile of rocks, and vanished in another flash of light this one red. "You're allowed to switch out, but it can be risky as your opponent might be able to get in some free hits," Shawn noted. "So you typically want a pokemon that can handle a lot of options to be your first one out in a match." Another monster appeared on the younger girl's side, this one looking like a strangely shaped muscular man holding a metal beam. "Gurdurr, a Fighting type. Very strong against an Onix." The rock-snake was already sweeping the stones that were at its tail end towards the new monster, the rocks glowing brightly. The Gurdurr was easily hit, and sent flying a short distance where he landed with a solid thud and didn't get back up. "Oof, not well trained," Shawn said sadly. "Either this is a bad matchup or that was one of her weaker pokemon."

The younger girl then sent out a block of rock, that Davis could just barely tell had a crab under it. Apparently this was a 'Crustle', and it started to move immediately in order to attack the larger monster. Davis was actually rather surprised with how seriously the two were fighting, and it was a bit of a shock to see the massive rock snake thing eventually fall over defeated. The battle took a fairly short time, but each of the monsters had hit each other quite a few times while that happened.

It honestly was rather intimidating. Just from what he had seen so far they were all fighting better than Flamedramon had so far. If this was the level that Shawn had expected the Digimon 'Emperor' to fight at then it only made it more clear how 'pathetic' the guy looked to Shawn.

The next monster from the older girl was a bit of a surprise, as it was the same kind as Kabutops. "A good choice," that particular member of the salamander's team chuckled. "Not just for vanity, both of their enemies that are still up are weak to Water type attacks." This was demonstrated when the crab monster quickly went down to a far more powerful blast of water than Quagsire's teammate had used so far. "Now might be the time to mention that I'm not in the sort of condition to actually participate in a League Tournament. For some context you'd understand, they are all solidly Champion stage equivalent."

That was really intimidating given how many competitors there were, and how strong Kabutops had seemed when they fought alongside the rocky bug monster. Davis had to blink when yet another new monster appeared on the younger girl's side, this one a yellow lizard monster. "How many do they each have?" he asked incredulously at the fact that this was the fourth apparently Champion stage monster. "Cause it's starting to seem like there's enough firepower there to level a city."

"The uncomfortable part of my answer is that a Champion's team not only is expected to have that much firepower on its own, but your cities are actually so flimsy by our standards that I could level one myself," Serperior unhappily began. "But more to the point, the official Pokemon League rules are for 6 on 6 matches at most. Some trainers will go in with fewer than six, but at the League level you typically only find ones that are able to support a full team."

"If you've ever had to feed six monsters you know why that's the standard limit for you to have on hand at any time," Quagsire complained, and Davis could see that the older Digidestined looked like they understood that idea. "Not to mention working with all of them to make sure they are in top form to fight." She then shook her head at the battle on the screen. "The younger girl clearly tried to cover as many types as possible instead of going for her strongest pokemon," she said more to the locals than the Digidestined. "Although I'm thinking that the other one wants to be a Rock type Gym Leader more than a Champion."

Davis watched as the other spiky bug seemed to almost dance around bolts of electricity, and wondered how hard they had to work to manage six times what he was doing with Davey before.

\---

Yolei glared at the can of 'Cheri' soda that she had gotten from the cafeteria. It was the only name she could recognize, although the staff did seem to look at her a bit uncertainly when she selected it. She had sat down again to keep watching the groups of too many monsters just beating each other up before she remembered what a soda tab was supposed to be shaped like, and how her new form wouldn't agree with that.

Which made the strangely overcomplicated thing on top of this can a surprise. It was fairly raised up, with a notably larger area above the top of the can to protect it that she was sure would just collect more of the soda when you tried to drink, and had more than enough room for her to fit the tip of one of her new claws under it to lift it up easily. The next trick became figuring out how to actually drink from it with her current face, as while she could seem to reshape her beak a bit it was still a stiff part of her body.

"Try to set it on the side of your beak and pouring into the lower half," Sora advised her quietly. "These ones seem to have a bit of a funnel for that purpose." The other transformed Digidestined had gotten a 'Wacan' drink can herself.

"There are also bowls," Grant noted from behind them. "Like we used for the water. It is generally a bad idea to struggle with food and drink." The large insect then scratched at the white spines along his neck. "Mostly because cleaning food off yourself is annoying." He then frowned at her can of soda. "Uh, are you sure you wanted that one?"

"It's the only one I recognized the name for," Yolei countered, and reluctantly poured some into the same bowl she had struggled to drink out of before. She then dipped her beak into the bowl for just a moment. "Gah! Hot! Why is it spicy?"

"Because it is a Cheri drink?" the blue bug said sympathetically. "The berries can cure paralysis, but they are rather spicy." Yolei could hear Hawkmon chuckling at her, and she simply sighed as she remembered his own experience with just this issue when she first brought them food from her world. "I can take that and get you something else. What kind of flavor are you looking for?"

"Get her another of these," Sora suggested, then poured some into her own cup for Yolei to try since she was still attempting to drink from the can itself. It was a nice sweet yet sour flavor that also felt protective in a strange way.

They all settled in, the first match now having ended with the older girl not needing more than two monsters to win against all six of the younger girl's. The next fight was between two new kids, both older than either of previous competitors, and started quickly with a more extreme level of combat than before.

Not entirely comfortable with that kind of fighting for what still seemed like no reason, Yolei turned to try and make out the people in the stands. The camera obviously did not linger on them, but with one of the two monsters being some kind of bat-thing it did lift up regularly. She frowned slightly at the strange shapes among the crowd, and then felt confusion over how it honestly looked like there were monsters among the audience as well. Between this new sight, the various items clearly made for monsters to use on their own, and the movie they started with she found herself wondering if this world actually had pets, or if it just had people who couldn't talk normally and looked weird.

\---

The group decided to break for lunch as the officials cut to a review period while the fields were resurfaced. This lead to an in depth discussion of what kinds of plants both worlds had in common, and also what sorts of plants each had that were not found in the other.

"Wheat is a staple food, and rice is much the same," Janice told the group regarding the basics available in the food line. "Berries and such make up a lot of flavoring. Meat is a bit of a touchy subject, especially since so many of us at DSS can talk to pokemon now."

"I am explicitly not allowed to discuss that topic with you," Grant said bluntly, and nobody really wanted to know why. "Because I have already caused problems with that topic with people from our world," he then continued, before vanishing in a flash of red light from the pokeball in Quagsire's hand.

"I'm removing any temptation from him," she bluntly told the others. "He can come out again when we're done with this topic, which is hopefully now, because that is not a lunchtime topic."

"Maybe we should talk about something else," Kari agreed thoughtfully. "From that video earlier it sounded like sometimes people don't want their partners to evolve. Why not?"

"You're really interested in that topic, aren't you?" Kabutops asked jokingly, and the puppy digimon blushed with embarrassment.

"I just want to be sure I know everything just in case we have to do it," the Digidestined of Light replied cautiously.

"I don't think any of us want you guys to be in a situation where you have to find out," Gatomon told her partner. "The older, uh." She paused for a moment to look herself over, particularly how she actually looked like she might just be older than Joe in her current form. "The rest of the Digidestined and these new guys should be able to handle what happens while we're stuck like this." Kari drooped a bit at this statement.

"The topic is still valid," Metagross spoke up. "In our own case the process is a fusion of lesser monsters. The four that make us up wished to be more capable, and thus we joined together. Others of our kind do not wish to become one with another, become a pair and then do not wish to progress, or even forge temporary bonds only when needed. Generally short term power growth in the final case is one of application rather than strength, unlike the situation faced by digimon."

"You know, it's really weird to know what they mean about 'fusion'," Shawn and Serperior said together. "Thinking and having someone else doing the same, it is a very odd sensation."

The entire rest of the room simply stared incredulously at the pair for a moment, then shook their heads and went back to their meals. Agumon took a turn explaining what it felt like when he tried to evolve, and how it compared to when he tried to change back, which seemed to improve Kari's mood from where it had fallen. This led to a short bit of speculation about if the way the newer Digidestined's digimon were turning back a level when they went home was a controlled process, or something setup by someone, followed by a longer explanation of just what the concept of 'level' meant to the pokemon world.

\---

Gatomon kept an eye on her partner as they went back to actively watching the matches instead of just having them going on the display while they ate, wary of her odd interests since the change. The more permanent TV setups that she could see showing the events were much smaller than the portable projector screen Janice had brought out for this idea, and she could tell that a number of the people who worked there were taking advantage of that fact to see a better view of the fights.

The match going on now had a purple cat monster that slashed and clawed their opponent with a good amount of strength behind the blows. Easily more than Gatomon could manage without her tail ring, which was a good example for their discussion about how the monsters of this world just got stronger as they practiced more. It also was at a fast pace that she could recall having to deal with, but only when multiple digimon were fighting her at once. Generally stronger digimon that she'd encountered preferred single strong blows over lots of weaker ones, but those digimon also preferred a bit less of a fair match than this looked to be.

The cat won against their first opponent, but then took a hard hit from a pokemon that Shawn said was a 'Fighting' type with an advantage. Then the cat's human sent switched them out early for their next monster, and Gatomon felt her heart stop for a second as the pointed hat of the creature reminded her of Wizardmon. The way the creature seemed to be casting magical spells did not help.

The transformed digimon closed her eyes for a moment to shudder at the thoughts, and then opened them again to watch how it progressed. The ghost dealt with two more of their enemies, but then Gatomon had to close her eyes again when a powerful shadowy attack hit the monster. When she opened them again the cat monster was back on the field looking angry.

The match raised questions the temporary human couldn't stop herself from considering. One that stuck to the front of her mind was 'what if?'. What if he had survived? Would he have gone with them to the digital world, fighting alongside her like these two pokemon fought along with each other, or would he have stayed in the human world where it was safe, and avoided the fate of so many of their friends that died in order to keep them alive. She tried to not feel the bitterness that lingered over how those digimon were now back, and he was still gone.

With great unease, she watched the cat monster win the battle for their human.

\---

Fumiko Hida was having a strange day. First she saw a rather simple film, with the odd decision to dub over the monster actors with those same actors speaking in another language. It was actually rather odd to discover that her transformation had included learning another language in the process. At first she had thought that the film's fights would be a hard thing to watch, but after the first one she realized the female lead monster was one of the creatures her grandfather had spoken of, and the fight seemed far more normal. Finding out that she was also the female lead actually answered more questions than it raised for Fumiko, and made her relax noticeably as she realized that she wasn't in a truly unheard of situation.

The children's show was like watching someone try and teach children with her grandfather's stories, only with more technology and less verbal arguments. It was really strange to see, and she was glad they moved on from it. She was not quite prepared to go over those stories with Cody and Armadillomon yet.

It was just too bad they moved onto an old nightmare she had been given by her grandfather. The realization that Groudon and their siblings were real, and their ancient conflict was the kind of threat her sons had to deal with, was worse than anything she had suspected. She found herself torn between thoughts of trying to bury her sons in a burrow and gather her own force of monsters to fight such things herself, and instead growing strong enough to teach him how to fight like those brave monsters that had held the gods back until Rayquaza could defeat the pair.

The Tournament was so far an enlightening way of showing that both of those paths actually sounded like they could work. The knowledge that this other world knew how to deal with that issue, and were actively trying to keep people strong enough, was a welcome bit of good news. It was actually rather entertaining to watch, although Fumiko did notice that other parents were actually looking more worried as it went on.

Then one of the combatants sent out a Sandslash, and she didn't have any spare attention for the rest of the room. In motion she could more easily see how the movements fit her childhood stories, particularly how the spiky combatant immediately filled the arena with a swirling, skin scraping sandstorm. Fumiko had to shake her head at how the opponent did not react well to a whirling ball of blades that could simply vanish into the stinging sand. The first two enemy monsters were taken down by this tactic before the storm expired, although the first had been fighting the Sandslash's teammate for a bit beforehand.

She found herself giggling at the face of the opponent after that loss, and the sight of a rocky spherical enemy made her have to smother an outright laugh. Which was good, because the Sandslash used a move that was not a laughing matter, slamming its tail on the ground and shaking the entire arena in an earthquake. Fumiko had thought that her grandfather had been exaggerating about that part, and this made her look to the shocked faces of the others from her world.

"I could feel that," she admitted, sensing that tremor at about the time the video had displayed it, but a part of her meant 'I could do that'. She felt a bit of fear regarding just what she could personally do to her world if she truly pursued training in how to fight like that.

"Okay, now everyone is freaking out and I'm not sure why," Janice said to the group, clearly confused by their reaction. What followed was a rather difficult attempt to explain why earthquakes were a bit of a harsh subject for an island nation plagued by them. Which in turn lead to the rather frightening realization that random monster caused earthquakes were so common in this world that what had just happened at the arena wasn't even big enough to count as a minor risk to any inhabited areas, a fact that Fumiko could actually feel was true the same way she had sensed the event in this fight.

\---

"Right, this is the first of the prime time matches," Janice said a while later after another resurfacing. "These are going to feature trainers that the officials think are the ones to watch, so they schedule them when most people are watching to draw crowds."

"Janice, isn't that the trainer who had the Latios?" Shawn asked as the first competitor came onto the field. "That should be- That's Jane." He said as the other girl came out onto the field. "That is Jane, against what might be a Legendary's trainer."

"Wait a second, isn't that the same necklace that you gave my mom?" Cody asked regarding a bit of jewelry on the girl, just before a blue and white jet plane shaped pokemon emerged on the other side of the field.

"Guys, tell me she wouldn't," Janice said unhappily. "Tell me she isn't going to-"

"Janice, it’s the chance to go up against a Legendary," Quagsire sighed. "She is definitely going to do that personally."

Before the Digidestined and their parents had time to ask what they meant, Jane Felsic proceeded to toss her bag and belt of pokeballs backwards, turn into a Charizard, and roar a challenge at the now very confused Latios. The utterly perplexed reaction of the announcers helped make clear this was not normal for this event.

"We are in such a mess now," Janice complained. "That was live during the biggest event in the region." The two pokemon then proceeded to start fighting rather extremely, both taking to the air and resulting in the League's aerial cameras having a rough time keeping up. "There is no way we're not getting mentioned."

"There is a chance she won't anytime soon," Shawn sighed. "Although that was about as obvious as you can get. For the record, this is very abnormal even for us. The only way this could get stranger is if she actually wins the Tournament."

The announcers then took a moment to go over the team listing for Jane to the viewers, and they noted that she had both a Charizard and a Charmeleon listed on her overall team, although the latter wasn't listed as participating in this match. As they checked with the officials they found that it was actually known by the League that she was on her team as a combatant for this round, and they then informed the group that they would provide details on the act of fighting personally in an official match after this battle had concluded.

"You know, I think somebody fought in the League themselves during the year I did my run," Grant said thoughtfully. "A psychic trainer, who thought he was really good at using that kind of thing for combat himself. Lost pretty quickly actually, your whole team is out if the trainer is defeated. Didn't seem to have a plan for what happened if he ran up against a Dark type himself."

"So, fighting with your monsters is an option too?" Davis asked with a bit of uncertain interest.

"I'm still not too sure about either of you fighting like this," his mother quietly said, and many of the other parents clearly agreed with this statement.


	76. 4-0C Black Light

\--- Black Light ---

Kari woke up for the second time in the form of a Salamon. This was still rather strange to her, as it meant that she did not have any ability to hold anything without trying to pick it up in her mouth. That made her plan a bit harder, but was also a motivation for it as well.

"Ugh, why does everything have to be so complicated with this?" Gatomon asked unhappily as she attempted to put on one of a number of new sets of clothes that had been hastily acquired for her to use. Kari was a little upset that her partner had apparently let her sleep in, and also found herself considering how she had treated Gatomon while getting ready. "I miss only having to deal with-" Her partner cut off, her eyes fixed at the now visible scar on her hand. "I need gloves," Gatomon then harshly stated, and went to the pair of white ones that had appeared when she had been transformed.

"You are keeping our digivice with you right?" Kari asked. "Just in case something happens?"

Gatomon sighed at this. "Yes, Kari," the former cat replied, with a cautious look in her direction while putting on the gloves. "Although I really hope nothing does come up."

\---

Joe Kido looked at the digital hospital with trepidation, and held the bag full of older reference books nervously. The two digimon he was apparently working for were both very happy to see that he had anything at all. "So, this is the job then?" Gomamon asked jokingly. "Seems a bit simple to me."

"Very funny," the Administrator, Delta 2, replied. "Thank you for getting a start on that project so quickly. I really want to get things going as soon as possible before all the larger issues we haven't noticed yet show up."

"So are we just reading first, or is it time for us to get our species switched?" the seal digimon asked clearly in an attempt to start verbal combat. Joe reflected that it was the kind of combat he was most capable of as a Rookie.

"If you're volunteering for that it would be great," TyranoGazimon said with a serious tone that meant Joe could not tell if it was meant as a joke. "We really will want to do some controlled work on that front to see what we can do to help the others."

Gomamon had the good sense to drop the attempt at humor and cringe at how he had brought up the topic. "You really need somebody to do that?" Joe asked with concern. "I thought you'd just use one of the younger kids."

"To be perfectly, does not leave this room, honest, I have heavily downplayed how serious the situation is," Delta 2 said sharply. "They are not 'turning back on their own', they have a scheduled instance of another permanent transformation at the end of the week. Upload just straight up switched the data, and I do not want to mess with anything related to them until the reversal happens if it is safe to avoid it. If they misunderstood and thought that I would even consider having them be the ones I experimented on then that's their loss."

His digimon partner/clone/brother sighed. "Well, I guess that means we are up for it," Gomamon said resigned, and Joe had to agree with the seal monster. If their friends needed this to help he'd put up with a bit of time without hands. "When do we start on that?"

"At least another day, probably longer since I'm going over these first," the pink monster said a bit bluntly. "Right now I need you to stick around to answer any questions that might seem simple to you that I ask about what's in these books. That will help more than you two deciding to see if you could pull off a twin act like the flying hamster and his human."

"Are you sure this is going to wear off?" a large green, somewhat bird shaped, monster that looked to also be a giant mushroom asked unhappily as it walked into the room. "Because Breloom is really worried that he's going to get in trouble for this."

"Yes, Albert, you will turn back into a human again," Delta 2 sighed, and Joe looked at the creature with a bit of worry about just how common this sort of thing actually seemed to be. "Actually this specific issue was in my research on that move you guys are working on. Another Breloom ended up living in a Trevenant inhabited forest apparently managed to learn it, and the result was that causing its targets to temporarily take on Breloom characteristics, with the humans involved fully transformed."

"I'll be sure to let your sister know this is a known effect then," Albert said with a frown. "Did they turn Grass typed or Fighting typed?"

"Grass, why? Is that important?" the Administrator asked, and the eldest Digidestined wondered if he should be taking notes or something.

"Huh, it might help with some things. Can you send that one to Alpha 45 to see if we can get more details on it?" the apparently transformed human asked.

"You can take it yourself actually. Like we were saying, it will wear off on its own. There's no need for you to be here, and we have other things to do," TyranoGazimon said with a claw pointed at Joe's books.

\---

Kari didn't want to try putting either of them in danger. Not only had that apparently turned out horribly for Tai, but more importantly she didn't want Gatomon to get hurt while she was a much more fragile human. However, that just left her with what few descriptions she had gotten about attempting to evolve yourself.

"There is so much stuff here," Agumon complained at the pile of old homework that their parents were having him go over. "And why are there so many of these really simple addition and subtraction problems?"

"Simple?" Tai asked and looked at the three digit addition problems that the dinosaur digimon was holding up.

"Yeah. It is all addition and subtraction here, and no real numbers like," the digimon frowned. "Like how 12575 plus 5673 is 18248." Kari blinked at the large numbers, and then again by how simple that figure actually did seem to her right then. "Uh, now you're looking at me like I said something weird."

"I think we might need to figure out how much you guys are actually computer programs," Tai sighed. "How about you, Gatomon, can you still do that kind of thing in your head?"

"Maybe, it sounds a bit less clear than I'm used to," Kari's currently human partner replied. "Maybe that's something we need to look at, give me some more complex ones."

What followed was an impromptu math lesson that was rather concerning for Kari, as she was definitely getting the various questions faster than she thought she should have been, and Gatomon was getting frustrated with the ones she was missing. None of them were having much luck with the word problems their mother tracked down for them, as apparently a digimon's natural ability to do math didn't extend to figuring out what math you needed to do. For the temporary Salamon it also made her worry a bit that the change might have actually made word problems harder for her somehow, although it might just be that their mother was using ones meant for her older brother.

Which made Kari wonder if Agumon was also her older brother now, and wish that the digimon had a better idea of what their age was. Evolution apparently was somewhat related to that idea, but the other world's Gazimon was still a Rookie despite being even older than Gatomon. Patamon should have been the same age as Biyomon, but he only looked T.K.'s age as a human while the bird digimon had turned into an exact copy of Sora. Even the new kids had 'Davey' looking younger than Davis while the other two looked the same age as their partners.

That was a possible downside to this plan, as there might be a chance she would end up older because of it. However, this also looked like a good opportunity to try for it. Her brothers were there if something went wrong, her partner was distracted with the topic, and she had a solid idea of how to do it.

So, she started to draw on the power she could feel through the connection to Gatomon, just like Agumon had described to her when he made himself evolve. It felt a bit different than he described, an almost grimy feel, like it was scummy water instead of a clean flow. There also wasn't very much of it at all compared to what the others had mentioned before she felt the little trip where her body began to shift.

"Kari?" Gatomon asked surprised as her body began to glow. "Please tell me math problems aren't enough to make you evolve."

Kari simply smirked as the change completed easily, and happily flexed her new claw gloves. They were a nice purple color instead of her partner's yellow, but after Yolei's feathers that didn't seem too unthinkable a result. "This was on purpose," she said to her currently human older sister. "Because I need to get- Wait, where is it?" she asked as she moved her tail in front of her. Her black and purple striped tail with no hint of a little golden ring on it. "This was supposed to get us another tail ring." She could feel her ears shift now with her annoyance.

"BlackGatomon don't have them," Gatomon groaned. "You apparently dark digivolved instead of the normal kind, probably because you didn't make sure I was alright with trying!" the former cat complained.

"Dark digivolved," Agumon said with a sigh. "Well, I guess doing that to a digimon makes you Tai's sister, and having it happen to you makes you mine."

"Glad you can joke about that," Tai said. Neither of them had spoken in a very joking tone. "So this was some sort of plan to get Gatomon back up to full power by giving her your power?"

"It sounds worse when you say it that way," Kari replied a bit petulantly, and then frowned at the way she had done so. "Although, maybe it wasn't the best idea since it didn't work."

"What exactly has Kari done?" their mother asked rather harshly, and Kari felt her ears shift again as she realized that she was in trouble.

\---

"So the only thing we really have to work on for this week is finding a safe way to get Kari to evolve without those new tainted parts interfering," Tyra informed Joe as they finished up a brief once over of the books. She had been slowly going over all the known details of the others' transformation. "That's going to be a mess, but it kind of makes sense that Upload didn't realize that Gatomon was a Champion all things considered."

"I think our worlds might have different standards of 'sterile'," Delta 2 interrupted with an uneasy tone. "And I don't know if that is because we can afford to be less careful with regards to things, or if there are diseases in your world that we don't have."

"That, is a really big problem we probably need a better medical professional than me to help with," Joe admitted with a tone that said he was grateful for a distraction from the patchwork digimon's information. "Although I can already tell that you aren't really getting the treatment timelines."

"What do you mean?" the Administrator asked thoughtfully turning the book she had to a reference chart.

Joe pointed to one of the columns. "This one here says '6 months' and it means it," he told the pokemon. "Not 'at most 6 months', or 'if things go badly 6 months', it just takes 6 months to heal."

"In the digimon world that kind of thing is true too," Tyra noted with a nod. "Although we did have medicine and healing stuff to make it go faster, and there are times when digimon would rather just replace with mechanical parts than deal with a long term injury." She flexed her reptilian arm. "I'm actually a bit of an odd one out trying to use non-mechanical parts for that sort of thing."

"So that was an upgrade for you then?" Gomamon asked slyly.

"Actually a silly coincidence, which seems to be just how the pokemon world works," the other digimon replied with a smirk.

"Honestly, my time in the digital world was already causing me some issues with learning this stuff," Joe admitted in agreement with Tyra. "There are all these digital folk remedies that I heard about, or had to use, while we were there, and it makes me forget that stuff doesn't actually work most of the time in the real world."

Delta 2 gave him a confused look at this statement. "Folk remedies tend to be either folk magic, or using rare ingredients that are only found in that local area," she cautiously said. "The issue with those isn't that they don't work, it’s that you can't mass produce them easily, safely, and/or without harming their source."

"Ah, well I guess that's a way your world is more like the digital one then," Joe explained. "In our world they are mostly things that people thought, or sometimes still think, cured problems, but that usually doesn’t do very much good."

\---

"I don't really feel evil," Kari noted, and looked quite happy to have arms and usable hands again.

"I didn't actually feel 'evil' when I was SkullGreymon," Agumon countered unhappily. "It most just ached, and I was so angry that they had been about to hurt Tai that I couldn't really think about anything but attacking anyone who might hurt him to make sure he didn't." He then looked uneasily at the floor. "I was also kind of scared. The energy didn't feel right and I could tell I was using it up too fast."

"You can remember that?" Tai asked pale.

"It was bad, but mostly because I couldn't really think," the dinosaur shuddered. "When it was over I could remember what happed and figure things out, but while it was going on it was just a bunch of nonsense that made me madder." He then looked thoughtful. "Although, now that I'm actually thinking about it I wonder if I could have tried to calm down. I know what that kind of energy use is like now, so I might be able to manage that if it ever happens again."

"Using it up?" the BlackGatomon asked nervously. "The energy should be going away?"

That made the other current and former digimon pause to look at the newly evolved Champion. "You can't feel yourself losing energy right now?" Gatomon asked uneasily.

"No, if anything it feels like my energy is," Kari began, and took a moment to word things properly. "Like it was pushed together before and is now filling the right space."

"That sounds more like when I first evolved into a Rookie," Agumon noted. "When Tai showed up I had been feeling like that for a while, but there was something missing for me to actually evolve."

"It does just happen eventually on its own," Gatomon agreed faintly. "But that does sound more like normal evolution instead of that powerup version we normally use. The kind that doesn't wear off."

"But I don't want to be evil," the new cat monster lamented.

"I already said that I wasn't evil when it happened to me," Agumon countered with a slightly angry look. "Just hurting and angry. Nothing about it made me actually evil, it just made it so it was harder to stay good." He now looked like he seriously was considering the idea of being in that form again. "So all you need to do is make sure you stay good, and we'll be fine."

"I think that this might be something we should have professionals look at," their mother cut in, clearly not fully following the conversation, but understanding that it was a serious issue, and they needed help to possibly fix things.

\---

Joe sighed at the sight of Tai's entire family, Izzy, and Gazimon all arriving, with Kari apparently going for a darker look than her partner. Given she didn't seem all that different from Gatomon normally so far, and nobody was really panicking that badly, he felt that simply being a bit unhappy with an interruption was the right reaction to this development.

"So, earlier, when I said there was something we needed to handle before she evolved? I meant to prevent this," Tyra complained. "Gazi, what happened?"

"Apparently Izzy knew about this thing and forgot to tell the rest of us," Tai also complained. "Something about the new digivices having a chance of causing this?"

"Right!" Gazimon said with a clap of his hands to counter the accusation. "I'll get down to the specifics of this situation right now so that everyone understands what actually went wrong here." He walked over to Gatomon and casually nabbed the Digivice of Light. "This thing here is Kari's Digivice. Quite specifically Kari's, not Gatomon's, and not like any of the other kid's. That's because Kari has something odd about her, that whole light energy thing."

"I thought I was a copy of her? Shouldn't I have that too?" Gatomon asked with a tone that made clear that taking the device like that was not acceptable.

"Trust me, Gato, if you had that energy the big bad bat wouldn't have bothered leaving you anything more than a power source, assuming he didn't just kill you," the purple rabbit monster said, his tone a hint depressed. "The thing is this was made for someone with that energy, which means that it specifically was made under the assumption that its user would burn away any darkness that tried to cling onto the energy transferred whenever they sent what was needed to evolve. Honestly, the only reason that Kari could even get enough to do that from you is that she already had more than a Champion's worth to work with."

"For the record, her having that much was one more reason why we were working on avoiding this issue," Delta 2 said with an exhausted tone. "Is there a way for us to get this back to normal?"

"So, there were two ways I thought that this problem could go," Gazimon replied with a sigh. "Option one was that it just wouldn't work, as the massive amount of light energy Kari has would just burn away the dark energies that invaded the evolution. That would also disrupt the process, and we'd have to work out how to stop it in order to get her evolved by the end of the week." He looked at Izzy seriously before the Digidestined of Knowledge could respond to that possibility. "Option two, and the one I honestly expected to happen, was that she'd evolve like this, but the dark energy would basically make her sick. After a while she'd de-evolve back exhausted and we'd still have to find a way to stop it by the end of the week."

"I don't feel sick," Kari noted with a bit of confusion, but her tone also was a bit annoyed.

"Which is why I'm unhappy to say we've found option three," the Dark typed digimon complained. "An option we didn't know was possible because if it was then there would be better ways of building those new Digivices. You absorbed the dark energy, and it just became part of you." He threw his hands in the air. "Just in there with the light energy, all of it working together in a way I partially want to analyze to improve these things." He tossed the Digivice back to Gatomon. "You are stable. Your body is stable, your energies are stable, your mind even seems stable so far. Which means I don't think there is a fix for this, because that implies that something was actually broken."

"Uh," Izzy started, with a look over to Tai to judge his reaction. The young genius found that the older boy was only looking thoughtful instead of upset with this news. "I had thought that having dark energy was something that needed fixing?"

"Ha! If that was true you'd need to 'fix' me until there wasn't enough left to live," TyranoGazimon harshly answered. "Admittedly that is partially because of the whole 'made of bits of other digimon' thing, but mostly it’s just that I'm a darker kind of digimon to start."

"If it was hurting her it would be something we could fix," Gazimon said. "As it isn't, we run the risk of actually hurting her ourselves if we try and get rid of it." He looked at the other Gazimon seriously. "We will still need to monitor this, and analyze it, just in case this isn't the best option."

"So, is there actually a problem, or is this just something that looks bad but is just a thing?" Joe asked a bit dryly, feeling that he had found the heart of the issue.

Everyone went quiet at his question, with Kari perking up noticeably, and then she seemed to come to a decision. "There isn't," she firmly informed the group. "If I'm alright like this, and I can't really try again to get Gatomon a new tail ring, then I'd say everything is fine."

"You thought that giving her your tail ring if you got one was a good idea?" Tyra dully asked. "Because that's a bad idea, even if you are effectively twins. Gazi, help me explain that little 'feature' of being a digimon."

"I can go into that one," Delta 2 told her assistant. "The issue is that it is basically an organ transplant. That is easier for digital creatures, but still has serious side effects. In your case one of those issues might be making it so you cannot use that custom evolution device properly anymore. Another might be your body losing endurance and vitality from the decrease in energy overall. Along with figuring out how to prevent this dark evolution I was also planning on giving Gatomon a full checkup to make sure her human form has not been adversely affected by the loss of her own tail ring." She sighed heavily. "I am still going to need to do that, along with a major follow-up for Kari when she's human again."

\---

Izzy found himself alone with Tai and Kari's parents after the long discussion of the properties of what seemed like clothes, but turned out to be closer to odd removable body parts for digimon. He looked nervously at the two adults as he realized that they seemed to want something.

"Did you actually know this was possible?" Tai's mother asked quietly.

"I honestly thought that Gatomon had that energy too," he admitted, upset with himself over not checking to make sure that was true first. "I knew that she had a tainted digivice, and I've informed T.K. of what I learned about that because I thought he was the one most at risk of doing this accidentally." T.K. also was possibly at risk of dying if he evolved, like Patamon had when he first did so, but Izzy did not want to get into that issue.

"Kari just seems more like a cat so far," her father noted uneasily. "But, well let's just say that 'like a cat' isn't exactly a way of saying someone isn't being evil."

"Susumu," his wife chastised him. "Miko isn't anywhere as bad as some of those stories."

"I actually meant Gatomon," Mr. Kamiya joked. "Although seeing her as a young woman is more unnerving than I expected it to be. I'm almost afraid to know what Agumon would look like if he was human too." He turned to look at Izzy again. "Please, if you know anything like this is a risk again, at least let Tai know about it. I'm sure that he's become enough of an adult to manage whatever it is, and he knows more about this digimon thing than we do."

"I've been trying to keep him up to date," Izzy agreed regretfully. "We just, we just have our own school work and stuff. Last time there wasn't anything but the digital world we had to deal with, and I'm not sure what is too much information or too little. I don't want to mess up his future by making him worry about things that don't actually have an impact."

The two parents looked at each other with a serious and sad expression. "Izzy, you do know what these people meant when they talked about what their Champions do?" Mr. Kamiya said waving an arm to indicate the people of the pokemon world. "Saving the world from monster problems is something they think is a full time job."

That was something the young genius had been thinking about, along with the knowledge that he now had access to the means to produce new digidestined. "I thought you were trying to get Agumon an education?" he asked cautiously.

"We are, but that might just be an education so he can be better at helping Tai manage all of you," Susumu Kamiya said seriously. "I can tell that my son has grown up, and that when it comes down to it, he's in charge of your group. If things are at the point where he needs to spend more time on this, we will help make sure he can. Even if it means he doesn't get a normal education, and even if that is what he ends up doing as a job."

Izzy rocked back at this reply. His own parents had said something similar to him, but they also knew how much he was applying technological skills that were hard to find even among adults. A computer expert working on an alternate world made of computer data was one thing, a guy who led a team of people who helped monsters fight other monsters was another. Although, he was currently in a world where the second one actually seemed more normal than the first.

\---

"I'm not happy with you," Gatomon said quietly, while her black furred partner sat a bit miserably in her lap. "But, at the same time I think I can understand why you wanted to surprise me."

"I should have asked the others more about how your tail ring worked, and actually talked with you about this," Kari apologized. "Not to mention asking Izzy if there were any problems with the idea."

"Yes, you should have. I'd have even been fine telling you about why I'd rather have you keep your own tail ring myself, if you ended up with one," the temporary human agreed. "I sometimes wonder if we might be able to find it again," she then whispered mostly to herself.

Kari stretched out a bit then jumped down, then after she landed on all four feet she stood up and looked her body over again. "Can you make sure I don't start acting evil?" she asked her partner.

"Kari, I'm not sure I'm the best dig- person to check for that," Gatomon replied sadly. "I'm. I'm not even sure I wouldn't be a BlackGatomon if I hadn't already started as a normal one anymore. I don't know how I managed to avoid it the first time if you could become one so easily."

The black cat frowned deeply at that confession. "Now I kind of want to prove that you were better than you think," Kari said slyly. "But I think causing real problems to show how you're still nice isn't the best way to fix that problem," she joked darkly. "So, I'll just have to settle for fixing problems in a way that makes people wish that you were still the Gatomon of the two of us."

Gatomon looked at her digimon partner with exasperation. "Kari, I've literally managed actual evil digimon before," she bluntly said. "Don't make me use those skills on you," she threatened.


	77. 4-0D Sudden Case of Siblings

\--- Sudden Case of Siblings ---

A Veemon woke up on a Monday morning, and took a moment to remember why he was a digimon. The temporarily transformed Davis Motomiya smiled at the realization that he didn't have to go to school today, which was just the latest good news for him. Given the bad news the day before that Kari had somehow turned herself into a strange kind of Gatomon, he was glad there was more good than bad overall.

The day before had also featured the first soccer game, but since Ken Ichijouji never actually showed up it was just a fun time watching the two teams play without their best people. His team had nearly won, only one point behind the previous year's champions. It had been really awkward and uncomfortable to pretend to be a stuffed toy the entire time, and he wasn't sure he succeeded at that, but he was glad he had been able to at least watch the match.

Davey seemed to have already woken up without him, and the Veemon considered for a moment if he should still think of himself as 'Davis' for the rest of the week, or have everyone switch things up. His parent's had already agreed that Davey was Davey, and he hadn't met a digimon with a name yet, even if pokemon sometimes had them. After the moment was up he decided that Davis still worked fine, and also solved the issue of if they both were the same kind of creature at the same time.

"I'm just saying that we should start getting things around now. With how many of their own people turn into monsters I'm sure those other world people can get you a way to be human again," his mother was saying to his brother as the reptile monster exited their room.

"Does that mean we'd get a way to make me into a digimon again too?" Davis asked somewhat hopefully. He could see that their television was currently tuned to one of the pokemon world's channels, with a news program on going over the movie studio's comments on their own use of transformation. Their small black box everyone had been given to access those programs was something the Veemon was very happy about, as it meant that he could keep up with the orange dragon-girl's matches.

"I'd actually like it more if you both stayed human from now on," she admitted unhappily, not meeting either of their eyes. "I don't like the idea of you two fighting those other monsters."

"But we have to," Davey said sadly. "It's, that's my world, mom. Even if we didn't know that they would start going after this one when they're done there, I still want to protect it."

Their mother was quiet for a moment, and then sighed. "I know. I just want both of you to be safe," she said as she turned to look at the TV. "I guess the best I can do is make sure you're both able to keep each other as safe as you can." She turned back to look Davis in the eye. "So, if you two are definitely going to be fighting these monsters, then I want you to spend this week working out how to fight them better since you don't have school."

Both of them blinked at this declaration. "Uh, I thought we weren't supposed to evolve because of the problem Kari had yesterday, and we really don't want to fight as just Veemon?" Davis nervously questioned. "I mean, I'm kind of interested in what being a Flamedramon is like, but..."

"Well, I actually do like the idea that both of you fight if you two are going to fight," she replied. "And from what I heard the issue was mostly if one of you wanted to just stay human. So. So, if you are going to do this then I want both of you to give it your all." Their mother was shaking a bit, and Davis was fairly sure that she wasn't actually at all happy about this idea. "So, I want you to try and get stronger so you can keep each other safe."

He looked nervously over at Davey, who was looking back with a worried expression that was weird to see on Davey's human form. Mostly because Davis was actually really used to seeing his little brother worried about things, but a human with that face was different than a lizard monster. "Alright," he agreed quietly. "But we will need somewhere to practice."

\---

Yolei glared at the empty room. The rest of her family had simply left her home all alone, even taking Hawkmon to help out at the store. After her father's lecture about how to take care of pets properly it honestly felt like they were treating her like a pet with how they just left her home alone.

After a while of fuming in a house that seemed just too large overall she decided to try and go over to Cody's. This unfortunately was harder than it sounded. First off there was the issue of how to get there without everyone seeing a giant bird monster walking around.

"I almost wish I was a Poromon," she complained as she looked between the door and the balcony. "Then I would have been small enough for someone to just take me with them." The Hawkmon looked at the height of the door knob unhappily. "Although I don't know how he stands being this short, let alone that tiny."

After a moment she decided that an attempt to fly outside to the other Digidestined's balcony was far more likely to get her spotted, even if a part of her felt like she wasn't flying anywhere near enough. This was another thing that it seemed was an advantage to being a Poromon, and she grumbled about it while she wrote her family a note.

It was awkward to open the door with her current height, and even worse to make sure it was locked behind her, she ended up carefully flying in order to reach everything. From there she nervously attempted to sneak through the halls to reach the other apartment. That went too easily in her opinion, as she was in front of the Hida apartment in no time at all.

At the door Yolei felt nervous about facing another family stuck in this whole mess. She hesitantly knocked at the door, and then listened at the slight scratching sound on the other side of the door. Then the door opened to reveal a small yellow armored monster.

"Did you just answer the door like that?" the bird digimon had to ask Cody's mother, despite the answer being quite obvious.

"Oh. I guess I did," Ms. Hida said as if it was only a minor issue. "I'll have to remember not to do it again."

Yolei quietly went inside behind the other transformed human with an uneasy feeling about that answer. "Armadillomon couldn't have opened the door?" she asked, with a bit of a flinch at using the odd name to talk about a human for once. Her family had taken to simply calling Hawkmon 'Hawk', which was close enough to a real name to work alright.

"Oh he went with his grandfather for the day," Cody's mom replied easily. "I think Armadillomon wanted to try out kendo for once." The adult easily said the transformed digimon's name, as if it wasn't unusual at all to her. "I've been looking at some of my grandfather's writings with Cody. You can join us, it should help with your current situation."

"Alright I guess," she agreed, uncertain about how eager the older woman was with that topic.

"Oh, Yolei, hello," Cody greeted her, and the Hawkmon realized that there were currently no humans in this apartment. "Apparently my dad knew about the digital world, and my great-grandfather actually fought other monsters himself."

"He was a strong Sandslash," Cody's mom confirmed with a nod. "Hopefully we'll be just as strong after we put some work into it," she cheerfully added, much to Yolei's shock and Cody was clearly uncertain about that idea. "I'm thinking of getting all of your team together to work on that this week. It should be fun."

\---

Jun Motomiya and Momoe Inoue walked to school together, quietly discussing the changes to their families. "I'm not even sure where to begin with Hawk," Momoe said unhappily. "He's, well he's so formal sounding. I keep wondering how he can keep a straight face talking like that. If he didn't look like one of us I'd never believe he was some kind of guy version of Yolei."

"Davey is basically the same as Davis was a year or so ago," Jun noted. "Mom and dad aren't taking things well. I think it would help them if we hadn't spent so much time watching that other world's TV shows to figure out the whole 'living with monsters' issue."

"You're watching more of that stuff? My parents haven't even let us turn the thing on," Momoe asked curiously.

"There was some odd stuff we ended up on yesterday," the other girl replied. "A game show where the prizes were all stuff for monster fights, a cooking show where there was this living icing monster that was helping bake things, more of that tournament when Davis wanted to see what was happening. We even found a soccer match, which was really weird because everyone in it seemed to be super powered even though they weren't monsters."

Momoe sighed at that last statement. "Have you had any issues with the super strength stuff that they apparently did to us?" she questioned tiredly. "We've had a few things break on us because of how it’s made everything fragile now."

"Uh, wait that's actually a thing? I haven't seen anything like that yet," Jun nervously admitted. "I know that little pamphlet thing mentioned we should be careful with stuff, so I haven't tried to do anything odd."

"I've bent a knife into a circle while I was distracted by all of us getting a lecture on keeping pets," Momoe confessed in a whisper. "Which was really uncomfortable, because Hawk was right there, and he's definitely not a pet."

Jun looked over at the other girl critically. "How are you dealing with your sister being a bird?" she asked cautiously.

Momoe looked confused by the question for a moment, and then horrified. "I keep forgetting that the bird monster is my sister," she grumbled after she hid her face behind her hands.

"You're forgetting that your sister is your sister?" Jun demanded in a quiet but firm tone, which made a couple of people turn to look at the two of them for a moment. "What about her having feathers right now makes her not your sister?"

"That's not it! Yolei doesn't look like herself, and I'm caught up with our new brother," the other girl countered. "It’s hard to pay attention to her being there when she's just this short angry bird monster." She then looked nervous. "And that reminds me that Hawk was the pink bird monster Yolei was treating like a toy. Do, do you think I'd be a bird too if I was a monster?" she asked uneasily.

"Well, if it works like that then I'd be a lizard," Jun said, still a bit unsure about how her friend was taking their sibling's changes. "I'd say you would get the better deal there, since you would be able to fly."

\---

TyranoGazimon gave Davis' mother a dark look as she considered if they should actually do this. "The good news I can give you," she cautiously said. "Is that the armor evolution method uses the dark components of your Digivices in a way that does not run the risk of what happened to Kari. The bad news is that we still do not know what sorts of side effects evolution will have on you, and the only reason we were even considering Kari evolving is that she was actively at risk of complications if she did not."

"Is it more dangerous to try it now than after they switch again at the end of the week?" Ms. Motomiya asked uncertainly. "Or is it just that it will take a while for them both to be able to switch after that?"

Tyra was now quite sure that she at least didn't want to do this, and that her job likely would involve far too many cases of humans that turned into monsters for far too many reasons. "The biggest issue with this method is that these two only have one catalyst to use, so only one of them can armor digivolve at a time." Both of the Digidestined looked disappointed by this information. "So, right now is probably a good a time as any to see if the originally human members of the team can even use these. That has actually turned out to be a really rare, almost unheard of, capability. Mostly because of the specific ones you're using, Gazimon has some similar things, but those are made for pokemon to use." She blinked as a thought occurred to her. "Which means that those are more of something for Cody and his family to think about."

"So, do I actually do anything for this part?" Veemon asked nervously. "I don't want to mess anything up." Tyra couldn't really imagine what it was like to become a human, a thought that passed through her head for just a moment before she realized that her job had a dangerously high chance of that happening to her.

"Don't worry about it Davey," Davis said as he moved into the open space they had made for his evolved form to fit. "If I haven't messed it up so far then you shouldn't either. Now come on, let's do this!"

Veemon looked over at TyranoGazimon, and after she nodded to confirm that they really were doing this, he held up the pair's Digivice. "Digiarmor Energize," the temporary human nervously declared. Davis' Veemon form then began to glow, and then very quickly grew into a lizard man that was around his human form's size. The glow then faded away to reveal a still blue and white scaled reptile, now wearing flame patterned armor over his face, hands, feet, knees, and upper chest. A large metallic bladed horn extended out of his head armor, and his hands and feet each now featured three large metal claws.

"Whoa," the new Flamedramon said in a more adult sounding voice. "This is different. Huh, I was sure you'd held onto things with these." He flexed his claws.

"From my experience you can make them less sharp while holding onto things," Tyra informed him with a flex of her own reptilian hand. "Now, onto more important matters. Can you feel the extra energy you got from that, and can you tell that it is wearing down?"

The blue lizard quickly glanced over to a clock, and then rubbed a claw against the bottom of his muzzle. "Yeah, it isn't going too fast right now though. I think if I don't have to fight I might get two or two and a half hours out of it," he specified, blinked, and turned to look with some worry at Veemon. "Davey, do you get smarter when you evolve into a Flamedramon?" Tyra sighed at this possible complication.

"Uh, maybe. It's easier to think about things, but I've only been one when we've needed to fight, so I'm not sure," the temporary human admitted.

"I. I'm not sure what I expected," their mother admitted. She cautiously moved closer to look at the armored digimon, and it was clear that Davis didn't take her fear of him well, even without the empathic ability Tyra could only barely use. Slowly she reached out to touch his body, and he very slowly shifted so she could see better. "Well, I guess I understand why you can fight monsters like this," she said only slightly less afraid as she rubbed the blunt backside of one of his claws.

\---

Hawkmon looked around the store with trepidation. Humanity was not agreeing with the former bird, and he was quite sure that a week was far too long to spend in such a shape. "Is something wrong Hawk?" Yolei's father asked, and he didn't know how to reply to that question.

"No father," he said and tried to keep from sounding uncomfortable with using that term. "I'm just not sure where these go," he added holding up the box of some real world food he had been asked to bring out.

"So, that's a yes then?" the older human asked, confirming that Hawkmon had failed to sound fine. "What's the problem?"

The former digimon looked down at the box for a moment to think about how he wanted to answer. So far his morning had been spent dealing with the family in a way that he was not at all used to, interacting with them directly. Yolei's siblings awkwardly attempting to treat him like another sibling, her parents trying to act as if he wasn't some random stranger. "I'm not sure I want to be anything other than a digimon sir," Hawkmon honestly answered. "I miss my wings and the rest of this is all complicated stuff that I did not think I would have to deal with myself."

This admission did not seem to be what Yolei's father had expected, and the older man looked over the temporary human uncertainly for a minute before responding. In that time Hawkmon was able to spot the shelf that his box would be used to fill up and got started on that task. "So, you want to be a bird-thing then, Hawk?" Yolei's father finally asked in a confused tone. "Is that actually better than being a, human?" Hawkmon flinched at the way he seemed to first think of something else to describe the former digimon's current shape.

"I am a Hawkmon. Not being able to fly, being so tall, having to walk everywhere, needing to learn how to deal with humans, staying on the ground-" the former digimon began to list.

"Okay, I get the picture. Flying is great and the rest of us don't know what we're missing," the older man cut in, and then sighed. "Do you want to head home now? I guess it isn't that big a deal if you don't really want to be here."

Hawkmon could tell that when Yolei's father said 'be here' he meant 'be family'. He also did not know if he wanted that from them or not. Yolei was his partner, which was supposed to be something like family from what he knew of the relationship, but that wasn't quite the same thing as actually being a real relative. One reason for that was being one of her family meant he was sharing relation with the rest of her family, while being like family to someone didn't have to include their relatives too.

"I'm willing to help out," he said, which wasn't quite committing to an answer to the real question, but wasn't saying no either. Hawkmon hoped that Yolei was having a better day.

\---

Yolei now fully regretted going over to Cody's. Ms. Hida had lots of stories about her grandfather and his world, some remembered and others written down. Most of them seemed to apply to what her life had turned into. All of them were about a giant mole monster covered in spikes that liked to fight other monsters and could cause earthquakes and sandstorms, that just happened to also be their ancestor.

"So then my grandfather caused a rockslide to block the path, which he did fix after this was all said and done," the older former human told them as part of the latest story, one about a mob of angry water monsters that wanted to hurt a rock monster that had not dropped a cliff face onto their village. Yolei was paying attention mostly out of a sort of numb horror at just how happily the older woman was talking about fights more serious than even the battles she had faced so far. Next to her Cody seemed to be torn about his mother's reaction to these events, but also seemed to be enjoying the tales to an extent.

"Wouldn't that have just made things worse though?" her Armadillomon shaped friend asked with uneasy curiosity.

"Oh it did, they then thought that grandfather was the one to start everything," Ms. Hida answered, and then was thankfully interrupted by their phone ringing. "Wait just a moment." She went over, and answered after casually sliding a chair into position to boost her up instead of just turning human again. "Hida residence. Oh, yes, Yolei is over here right now." Cody's mom nodded at the response. "It isn't any problem at all, I've mostly been telling some stories about my grandfather today. Oh, that reminds me, I was hoping to set up some time this week for the kids to practice fighting." Yolei paled at this. "Davis' mom is already planning one? That's great news!" The bird digimon did not agree at all with that assessment. "Later in the week? Alright, I guess that gives us more time to get things ready."

"I hope that we can be ready by then," Cody whispered nervously, and Yolei could only nod in agreement.

\---

Jun Motomiya arrived home from school after the day had mostly successfully made her forget about the whole mess that was going on with her brother and his friends. The sight of a giant blue lizard monster with flame patterned clothes sitting to watch TV quickly reminded her that she now had two brothers, and one apparently could get bigger over the course of a day.

"Hey Jun," her original brother said lazily in an older sounding voice. "I'm only like this for a bit longer. We're trying to see how long we can make it last, and if it gets longer with practice."

"The older kids haven't tried that before," Davey complained from next to Davis, and he looked a bit tired. "Apparently they couldn't even tell that they were actually using some of their energy too."

That reminded Jun of the one thing during the day that did keep the changes in her head. "In gym I had to hold back a lot to not break the equipment because of how much those poke-people gave me," she complained. "Okay, more of the equipment," she added in response to the slightly disbelieving look on the lizard monster's face

"Being like this makes me smarter," Davis joined in the complaining, although why that was something to complain about was a bit odd, which apparently he could tell. "I go back to being dumb when it’s over," he clarified without needing to be prompted in an upset tone.

The response alone was intelligent enough Jun could tell he wasn't messing around. She looked down at his homework in her hands. "Well, maybe that will help with school?" she suggested uneasily.

Her lizard brother snorted at this idea. "Yeah, and then what do I do when I get back to school and can't manage any of the stuff anymore?" he criticized himself.

"Hey, you're smart enough to do it!" Davey countered as he stood up to look at their monster brother. "Maybe if you look at the stuff now, then you will understand it faster even when you change back."

Davis didn't look convinced, but did seem to be considering the idea. "Okay, I'll try with some of it later tonight, but right now that Jane girl is about to have her next match in the Pokemon League," he agreed, and pointed at the TV. Jun laughed at how he seemed to have gotten a bit of hero worship for the dragon girl.


	78. 4-0E Apologetic

\--- Apologetic ---

"The Emperor's upgrades are enough that taking any more regions requires a focused attack," Bob informed the rest of Team Upload in one of their new main bases. "So the good news is that we are justified in not expanding anymore now. Unfortunately the bad news is that we can't justify expanding into his territory without a serious force now. Hopefully we have taken enough of the world to get the Chosen Ones to still go after us more than him."

HackBiyomon frowned at this as she leaned against a tree. "The human world is still the way I remember it mostly. Which is 'big, complicated, and controlled'," she quoted the Wyrm grunt's description of the world distractedly. "Our bases there are secure, power generation is up and running, and our artificial worlds fully operational."

Alice didn't bother to lean, she was instead draped over a crystal computing system. "Analysis of the Stones is complete, and we are ready to start tuning them now. As predicted we should," she yawned heavily "be finished by the end of the week at the latest."

"Hackware growth and development is within expected parameters," the Architect noted with a calm unhappiness. "It appears that there is no impact from either this world's nature, or from our alteration of that nature."

The conversation continued for a while, with the half asleep form of Absol as only hybrid not joining in with any comments. The grunts had minor complaints and suggestions about how to proceed. Alice and Bob mostly clarified why those were not things they could do anything about. The Architect only rarely added his own thoughts, sometimes siding with the Crypt twins, rarely with the grunts, and twice having HackBiyomon give her thoughts.

The young girl was not having a good time with her own week of being in human form, and already missed her wings greatly. She had chosen her tree because Absol was lying next to it, on that old bed he kept in his personal storage ever since they figured out they could put stuff there. The pokemon world's inhabitants were not actually that unfamiliar with being able to do things like that, so the rest of them had not thought that the magical ability to just keep stuff with you was that impressive.

"I'm thinking about what my mom said about my sisters," HackBiyomon quietly told the pokemon. "And a part of me wants to just go apologize to them now, before things get any worse."

"Sooner is better than later," Absol actually answered her, an increasingly rare thing since their arrival as he ran himself ragged in an ongoing attempt to divine the way out of their current mess. "Today wouldn't be too bad."

"Better for her, or all of us?" Alice asked of the two, apparently she had heard the conversation. "Because her sisters are kind of supposed to be our enemies."

"Although if they can be trusted it would give us an avenue to speak with DSS covertly," the Architect suggested.

"It does do that, but the main thing is that it makes it easier for them all to accept us as not being truly their enemies when the time comes," Absol clarified. "Also it would keep her mom from getting into trouble with her sisters. The whole family seems to be solid at keeping secrets."

"You mean that?" HackBiyomon asked eagerly. "I can do it without causing problems." She then blinked as she reviewed the rest of the conversation. "I can do it and that would help?"

\---

"Here," Gazimon said as he tossed something for Joe to catch.

The oldest Digidestined had dealt with this kind of thing enough to manage to grab the small black device, despite the fact that he had literally just arrived in the Troubleshooter Lab from his world. "What exactly is it?" he asked resigned. He heard Gomamon snicker at his dull response, and gave his partner a brief glare. The object was slightly smaller than his Digivice, with a hard plastic case and a trio of lights. One wasn't currently lit, while the other two glowed a dull red color. "Other than obviously something for my new job," he guessed.

"Delta 2 did tell me to give you one," the rabbit digimon agreed. "This is the new Gatecrasher I've been working on with Izzy to get you older kids the ability to get to the Digimon World yourself." Gazimon then casually walked back to his wire infested console. "It is a lot more brute force than what the other kids have, so you can't use it to just open the gateway like they do, direct transports only. It also needs to recharge due to not working directly from a Digivice's power. You have two trips a day, and I had to work to fit that much power storage into the thing. Red lights are available charges, the yellow one indicates an error occurred and that means you need to contact me or Izzy ASAP."

Joe blinked at that description, and looked at the device again, before sighing. "Let me guess, she needs me to be digital for today's stuff?" he asked dully, and the digimon didn't bother with responding with more than a solemn nod. "Any idea what it is?"

"I have a few trips to and from Janice's homeworld in the schedule from her, so I assume they want to know what you look like as a pokemon for some odd reason," Gazimon complained. "Or they want to figure out if you will when you're digital, we did find a good candidate for Cody's great grandfather's disappearance." The rabbit monster then tapped a few keys on his console. "Yeah, looks like his mom is scheduled to go there tomorrow. We must be trying to figure out if the kids can go along."

"So I guess that means I'm getting to see a different world too?" Gomamon asked.

"Worst case you end up a pokemon too," the rabbit monster suggested jokingly, then noticeably sobered. "But seriously, try not to turn into a pokemon too, we have enough problems."

\---

Sora looked up as her mother hung up the phone. "Who was that?" she asked, ruffling her feathers a bit awkwardly as she still wasn't quite used to having them. She actually wasn't very comfortable at all with the form, but after she had seen how Yolei was also struggling with the same problem she decided that she should at least attempt to get comfortable for the other girl.

"Your little sister is coming over," her mother replied confusingly.

"That's good. I've been looking forward to meeting her," her father then added ominously.

"Uh, wait, I thought I was the only daughter you had that you hadn't met?" Biyomon asked him, still clearly uncomfortable with calling them her parents too.

Suddenly a red flash appeared in the middle of the room, and before Sora had even realized what was happening she found herself standing ready for combat in front of her newly arrived clone. Despite not being sure how or why she had reacted so swiftly, she still didn't flinch as she realized what was there.

"Uh. Okay, yeah, maybe I should have started at the door," the villain nervously said, before she looked around the room awkwardly. The disconnect from her sinister mood and actions the last time Sora had seen her was extremely confusing.

"Probably," her mother agreed, as if the evil copy was supposed to be there. It still took a moment for Sora to realize that this was the 'little sister'.

"Why are you here?" Biyomon demanded, directing an angry look at both the copy and their mother.

"To apologize," HackBiyomon replied cringing. "I, well." The younger girl looked at their mother uncertainly. "I have no idea where to start. I'm definitely sorry about making the two of you switch forms, that was a poorly thought out idea. Lots of things weren't true that I thought were. But, at the same time it was one of the best options we had to keep you all out of the digimon world for this week so we could undermine the real enemy's plans."

"'Real enemy'?" Sora asked, and did not move from her defensive stance.

"Whoever set up the 'Digimon Emperor'," HackBiyomon clarified. "Uh, okay I really hope DSS explained what Absol can do?" she halfway asked, and as she saw they did not seem to know continued. "Okay, Absol can see disasters, mostly just ones that help him but these are bad enough that they don't have to help for him to see. If the Emperor goes down too quick then the person or people who set him up will just go all out on us, and none of us are able to stop them right now. So, we're making sure you have another bad guy to keep them busy while also helping to get you strong enough to beat them."

"I think we might need some more detail than that," their father told the copy.

\---

Joe looked the other otter monster in the eye with a dull expression. "We're blaming Gazimon for this," he told Gomamon.

"Joe, I have almost-hands," his currently orange furred partner complained, holding out his forelimbs to demonstrate. "Not to mention we look like twins."

"So the two of you don't normally look much like each other?" the blue and black humanoid dog monster at the edge of the large stone platform asked curiously. "I almost wish I'd gone with the others for the eye goggles to see what my relatives look like as humans."

"Tyra, how are we dealing with this?" Joe asked the black box at the edge of the area instead of responding to the pokemon. He rubbed at the yellow float that apparently was now part of his body uneasily.

"You two are helping the Lucario handle the volunteers I'm gathering now," the patchwork digimon's voice told them with ample annoyance. "We have digimon refugees that can help us figure out if this is a Digidestined thing, or if Floramon and Tyranomon just got lucky to stay digimon."

\---

"So, if I'm understanding you right, you decided that instead of just telling everyone what the problem was and helping directly, you would try and help us fix the problem while looking like you weren't actually helping at all," Sora complained from behind her wings, then looked up to glare at Biyomon for giggling at the summary. "Well, we can definitely tell you're a copy of me then."

"We can what?" HackBiyomon questioned, quite confused by how the two things were related.

"After, um, well I guess after you were made, Tai disappeared and the rest of us split up," Biyomon noted still looking amused. "This nasty digimon called DemiDevimon then convinced Sora that she couldn't use her Crest, so she basically decided to do that too."

HackBiyomon simply stared at the bird digimon for a moment. "Are you telling me that the first thing I tried to do in order to actually be your evil clone is something you've already done?" she asked a bit harshly.

"Well I didn't have an army of evil digimon to help," Sora countered, but looked slightly nervous about it.

"Didn't those Gazimon say they would help us do stuff if we could keep them fed?" Biyomon noted idly. "I'm fairly sure you were seriously considering their offer."

"Okay, yes I probably could have had a small army of evil digimon if I tried," the transformed Digidestined admitted unhappily. "But I didn't, so that's still a big difference."

"I'm not sure I like my first attempt at being the evil clone still being something you did," HackBiyomon complained, and doing so seemed to actually ease the tension that had lingered in the room slightly. "I'm also quite sure I don't like the idea that you thought you couldn't use your Crest. After you found the original it should have been easy."

"'The original'?" Sora asked confused.

"Instead of the one Datamon made for his trap," her copy specified, then frowned at how her sisters were only looking more confused. "Wait, that one worked? Huh, I guess he really did make it right then. If you never found the original Crest of Love then maybe we should try and see if it’s still around somewhere."

"That'd be nice," the temporary bird digimon said uncertainly. "Being able to reach Ultimate again would help a lot."

"What do you mean 'again'?" HackBiyomon questioned darkly.

\---

Joe and Gomamon both looked unhappily at the crowd of both digimon and confused pokemon in front of them. The pair of Floatzel then sighed in unison, which given their identical appearance seemed to unnerve many of those transformed. "Well, looks like it is a thing that happens," Joe complained as his tails twisted with annoyance.

"I kind of wish this was tested before I got turned into another thing," Gomamon added. "Can we go back to normal yet? It’s weird being the same thing as you."

"Yeah, you guys can come on back with the volunteers. Delta 2 is going over the data from this to figure out what we're telling the Hidas," Tyra's voice said. "Unless of course you two want to spend some time in the town yourselves to see what civilized pokemon are like. I'm not sure if there is anything we'd work with the two of you on today with this project taking focus."

"Go spend the rest of your shift with the locals," Delta 2 suddenly cut in over the Dark Network Node. "Make sure to find their own medical support and figure out the basics of how they work. Working with your world is important, but might not be a long term thing, and these guys I know I'll be dealing with for years."

"So, just to ask, is anyone up for some training?" the Lucario helping them out asked. "Because I could actually use some help with fighting Water types."

"Tyra, is violence a common side effect of this sort of thing? Because I almost want to say 'yes' to that," Joe complained uncertainly, earning a shocked look from his double.

"Yes, that is in fact a common side effect of being made into a pokemon. I'll see if I can convince our boss to let you come home now," the patchwork digimon admitted.

\---

"Right, 'replace the Tags and Crests' just went on my list of things to do," HackBiyomon complained. "Although I'm not sure where we're going to get enough power for that one. Might need to start smaller."

"Wait, you're planning to help with that already?" Sora asked.

"We really do want to," the copy confirmed a bit hurt. "Admittedly mostly because the bad guys winning would hurt us too, but we're still trying."

"If you are sorry about turning us into the wrong thing, why don't you just turn us back?" Biyomon asked a bit harshly.

This made the younger girl cringe and look away awkwardly. "Uh, that isn't exactly the safest thing to try. Personally I'm even regretting doing this to myself already," HackBiyomon said nervously. "I already miss my wings, and being a human-Hackware hybrid is a lot weirder than being a digimon one."

"Wait, you're stuck too? This is something so bad you can't even turn yourself back until it's over?" Sora questioned a bit frantically.

"I still haven't figured out why Kari ended up a different digimon yet either," the red eyed girl complained. "Uh, do you guys know the reason?"

"Gatomon is a Champion. Unfortunately Kari is now a BlackGatomon because of that problem," Biyomon criticized. "Something about their new Digivices being a bit evil."

"Any more bad news?" the Upload hybrid asked, her face now buried in her hands. "Maybe one of them turned into a pokemon too?"

"Cody's mom," Toshiko Takenouchi said a touch jokingly. "Although that turned out to be because of family history. Apparently her grandfather was something called a 'Sandslash'."

HackBiyomon paled at this statement. "I've fought one of those before, they can be scary," she said with worry. "Sandstorms and earthquakes and sharp spikes."

"We saw one fighting at that 'League' thing, I can fully under-" Haruhiko Takenouchi started before the full implication of that statement hit him. "Fought as in had to fight against yourself?"

"He was very clear that he wouldn't try and actually kill us, I had a lot of other Champion Hackware to help, and I was a bird monster that couldn't fit in this room," his youngest daughter explained, with little effect on his unease.

"I'm not sure I want to think about what I helped Biyomon try and fight," her mother said faintly. "And she turned into a bird monster the size of a building."

\---

Joe sent out an exhausted sigh that was accompanied by a noticeable amount of water at the edge of the small arena where he had unwisely decided to fight the dog monster. His float was entirely deflated, he was sore in places he didn't have this morning, and Gomamon was giggling on the sidelines.

"Well, if anyone tells you that you don't know how to fight I can say they're wrong," his Lucario opponent said from where the young canine was also laying on the ground.

"I think I pulled a lot of things," Joe grumbled, and then flexed his claws to judge if he was up for standing again. He was not.

"Hate to say it Joe, but I don't think I'd have done that well in this body," Gomamon commented with amusement. "Then again I think between the two of us you've actually had more success fighting digimon without evolving."

"Don't be so down on yourself, Goma," Joe dryly replied. "I'm sure with a bit of practice you can reach 'captured by restaurant owners'."

"I think you're underestimating how strong that Vegimon was," his partner said a bit less jokingly. "Seriously though, are you okay, Joe?"

"I'm not sure it is a good idea for me to stay like this," the former human grumbled. "I might get used to fighting."

"Well, the hope is that you wouldn't need to ever deal with Corruption," Tyra suddenly said from behind the group. The patchwork digimon walked forward to look over the two Floatzels. "But if you do end up working on anything related to that then we will need you at least knowing how to avoid attacks properly." She looked over at the Lucario unimpressed. "Although from the looks of things you're already doing alright."

"I just evolved," the canine defended himself. "I thought I'd found a way to win my first match against another evolved pokemon." He groaned and failed to stand up.

"Did he win?" TyranoGazimon asked Gomamon.

"Nope, Joe was the last one standing," the other orange otter said with a laugh. "At least until he realized that the other kid was down. Now neither of them are standing."

\---

"I might need to ask you to pass messages along to DSS for us," HackBiyomon said after the short discussion of what kinds of fights she and her sisters had been in.

"Wait, you're going to let them know about this?" Sora asked confused.

"They already know, I was still here when they showed up to get mom about what I did to you," the younger girl noted. "Not to mention they know what we could really do if we weren't holding back so much."

"Holding back?" her currently human sister questioned with worry. "But, you've been conquering lots of the Digital World and taken out lots of the Emperor's digimon," Biyomon worried. "If you're holding back, why do you need our help?"

"We were assuming the original Digidestined could still reach Ultimate," HackBiyomon started uneasily. "And we also know from Absol's predictions that the bad guys can beat us easily if they go all out. So we're trying to buy time for the new ones to get stronger, hopefully to the point where the bad guys can't beat them."

"Mom, you knew that they knew?" Sora questioned her mother a touch darkly. "They've known this entire time?" she asked a bit more harshly.

"I think that might be why Absol said telling you sooner was better than having mom keep this a secret longer," HackBiyomon deliberately noted idly. "That way a Digidestined was aware of this so it wasn't just the people from another world." She shifted uneasily. "Can you keep this quiet?"

"If things are so bad that you're all still holding back and can't deal with our problem instead? Yeah, I think I can at least not mention this," Sora agreed unhappily. "But I'd rather not if that was possible."

"I'll check with Absol then," the youngest sister agreed. "Maybe we can get some of the older kids in on this. Joe might be able to keep a clear head about that."

"Well, he is working for DSS now," Biyomon informed the other transformed digimon. "So if they already know then maybe they're going to tell him."

"Given they ran out of humans before we did I'm fairly sure that means he's going to be transformed into a monster before the week is out," HackBiyomon informed the others unimpressed.

\---

"For the record, I don't want to be a pokemon again if I don't have to," Joe told his new boss as he sat down heavily. His body was still sore, despite being human again. "Hopefully 'Team Upload' isn't bad enough we'll need to have those of us who are supposed to be human join in the fights."

"Hmm," Delta 2 muttered unhappily. "There is a bit of a story with that one. We'll see if you're up for learning it in a little while. In the short term, Davis and Davey are both likely to be both human and digimon going forward if we can get that working, and from today's work I can fairly clearly say that Cody is probably going to be a Sandshrew, even if he doesn't go on this trip, the next time he returns from the digimon world using your gates." She sighed heavily. "Which means that even if we don't end up needing it we probably still will have some of the ones that were originally human ending up monsters in the future."

"Anything else we need the kid for?" Tyra asked as she looked at a clock on the wall. "It’s getting a bit late."

"No, I think that's more than enough excitement for one day. Do you want me to send you back from here, or is there anywhere else you need to be?" the Administrator asked.

"Actually could you send us somewhere else? The older Digidestined are getting together tonight," Joe noted, and then gave the Porygon 2 the details on his destination.

The two of them soon found themselves at the edge of the park, where five of the older members and their digimon were already present. Sora and Biyomon seemed to have just arrived as well, and looked rather distracted. Tai and Matt were quietly discussing something, likely the fact that they weren't bringing their siblings along. "Wait, you're serious? Your parents are having Kari eat cat food?" Matt then asked more loudly as the others noticed Joe's arrival.

"Alien cat food full of that energy that's making us superheroes," Tai confirmed with a sigh. "Which they're also feeding our normal cat, because the bag Shawn gave us is too big for just this week and Gatomon isn't in trouble. Although from the things she's mentioned I think she might have been stealing from Miko since she came back."

"Are they actually making you cut back on schoolwork in order to deal with digimon stuff?" Izzy asked their leader uneasily. "Mine are. The good news is that I've got a start on getting us a new set of Crests."

"Yeah," Tai admitted. "Although I think all of us have some of that problem now. I've been trying to get some books on the way the other human world works, and the stuff I've seen so far is scary." He looked each of them in the eyes. "I mean, it looks like they have at least a small problem like what we've faced during the downtime we had in the digital world every year somewhere on their world."

"I'm sure that both of these 'pokemon' groups are holding back on us," Matt complained at that information. "We've seen what those tournament monsters can do, and even if the 'Troubleshooters' are weaker than that it can't be by that much. That means that 'Upload' also has to be pretty strong, and we know they have plenty of Champions they can send at us."

Sora looked particularly uneasy at this statement, and Joe could guess that their transformed teammate wasn't fond of the idea that what happened to her was 'holding back'. Unfortunately Joe couldn't really help with that. "Given what I learned today about just how much pokemon love to fight, I have to agree," he informed the group while rubbing at still slightly sore muscles.

"So they went into detail about that kind of thing?" Biyomon asked with a strange expression on her face that was honestly a bit hard to judge. Joe was more used to seeing a beak on her, and he was sure how not having one changed her face.

"Actually I've had firsthand experience today," the Digidestined of Reliability admitted and moved to sit down. "And I also got into a fight with a puppy monster until neither of us could stand."

"Where were you while he was fighting a monster?" Gabumon asked Gomamon at that declaration.

"Also a pokemon, because today sucked," the seal digimon complained. "I mean, now I know that letting him do that was crazy, but when it was happening? It just seemed normal, not a big deal."

"And I was having fun when I was doing it," Joe informed the group, still shaken by that fact. "I was fighting a monster, and having fun. A whole world of people who think like that? Yeah, I think they have to be holding back."


	79. 4-0F Earthshaking Relatives

\--- Earthshaking Relatives ---

Chikara Hida looked over his daughter in law's current project with unease. Ever since they had learned that other worlds actually existed she had been frantically adjusting their lives to take that information into account, and her change into a monster herself had only accelerated the process. The maps spread across the table were the latest worrying aspect of the change, and the old man was gripped with fear as he realized they marked out the various fault lines across the country, complete with Fumiko's own notes about what her new senses said was happening.

Today the four of them were traveling to her own grandfather's world, and according to the strange lizard-rabbit monster they would all change into monsters when they reached that world. Chikara wasn't sure if he was more worried about what being such a thing would feel like, or regretful that his son wasn't going to be with them.

"Hiroki should be going with us," Fumiko echoed his thoughts, in human form for once. "It is hard to even think about how I'm going to be making it to my other world when he didn't even get to see his again."

Chikara nodded in agreement and then frowned as she began to pick up the various papers to put them into a bag. "What are you working on?" he asked her uncertainly.

"If we ever need to fight in this world, I want to have some idea of how to stop it from destroying the entire country," his daughter in law told him seriously. "I'm hoping to get some advice on how to manage earthquakes. Maybe even to help deal with natural ones as well."

"Is that really something you could accomplish?" he asked her seriously, as this was no joking matter.

Fumiko carefully removed one of the maps from the rest, an old paper that was well aged, and more importantly was clearly hand drawn and covered with her grandfather’s notes. "My grandfather only had a tiny amount of his power left to him," she said tracing the lines. "That was enough for him to make this. Yes, with enough Ground type power we could do that, at least to make them a little less devastating."

"Such power does not come without a cost," Chikara noted uneasily. "What is the catch?"

"In order to know how to use that power, you have to practice using it," his daughter in law confessed. "We can go to these other worlds to train more safely, but if there are going to be people living in this one that can do this, they need to practice here too in order to know how they can work our own earth. Which means we will one day need to be able to use that power here just as commonly as they do in the other worlds."

\---

Armadillomon looked around the Troubleshooter Lab uneasily with his family. "Ah have ta admit that I'm looking forward to having a shell again, but are y'all sure it’s okay fer us to do that?" he asked TyranoGazimon and Joe as the former got things ready for their trip, and the latter finished checking their supplies since he was going with them.

"Trust me, I've spent enough time as an otter already to not have you four end up monsters," Gomamon complained, and the transformed digimon flinched at how his family had caused the other digimon to end up dealing with that issue too.

"More to the point, we've already messed up the two of you as much as we can," Tyra noted. "Just the typed energy exposure from the higher end scanner systems we've used on you will likely have the side effect of replacing your non-digital-human forms with pokemon forms given your family history. Those scan results show that you'd have had this issue by the end of the week from just how we were operating before this whole mess started. There's no extra harm in sending the both of you to the pokemon-only world for a while."

"Are you sure you want to go with us Joe?" Cody asked the older Digidestined nervously.

"Well, Quagsire's team is currently off fighting malware in one of the other digital worlds, Shawn and Serperior are helping one of Delta 2's siblings set up a farm in their own digital world, A-0 and Gazimon need to stay on hand if another problem turns up, and Tyra is actually able to work on the overall transformation problem so she's busy too. So unless we want to bother a god, whatever they mean by that, I'm the only DSS employee that can escort you to this other world," the Digidestined of Reliability listed dully. "So from what I can tell turning into a battle hungry monster is honestly one of the less stressful jobs I could be doing here."

"You have that many problems of your own?" Cody's, and by extension Armadillomon's, grandfather asked the locals. "I did not realize that you had so little spare effort for our world's problems." The temporary human had to agree with that thought, the idea that the powerful people that had countered the new threats so easily were already tied up with their own issues made getting strong enough to face them much more important.

"Honestly? Things are still on the slower side overall," Tyra admitted unhappily. "So we do have time to help you out quite a bit. However, that is why we're trying so hard to get you up to speed to help with the Upload problem. That way when it’s over we don't need to keep helping you with any new problems."

"Like we are already having to do with Quagsire's team handling all of the digital worlds Upload left behind in our own world," A-0 complained from the other side of the room. Armadillomon was uncomfortable with that monster. Its body was clearly too simple looking for how powerful it was, and that deception was only made clearer by how its siblings controlled entire digital worlds. "So I would really appreciate this being the start of a partnership with your group, instead of just adding another team to our own. Hopefully a somewhat distant partnership in the long run."

"Trust me, given what I've seen of working with you, we all will want you to be a bit less involved," Joe complained. "I think there'd be a lot fewer transformations." The Troubleshooters all looked like they actually agreed with that statement.

\---

Chikara Hida braced himself as he landed on the stones paving the clearing, his hand closing over the bone club now resting in it easily, as if he had possessed the item before the teleportation. Around him the three other members of his family now looked very close to each other. Cody was a darker brown color closer to Chikara's new scales, while Armadillomon was a bit brighter of a yellow, and Fumiko a duller yellow color closer to sand. He could also feel an odd stiffness over his face, not quite a mask but not quite his flesh either. A part of him knew it was an ancestor's skull, although how it had gotten fused to his face was something he could not place.

Just a short distance away a pair of orange otter monsters had appeared, and after a moment the new Marowak was able to identify them as Joe and Gomamon, although they appeared identical so he could not guess who was who. He also realized that the names of the digimon suddenly seemed far less unusual than they had just moments before.

"So, I was kind of expecting you all to be the same species," Joe noted, although Chikara had not been looking at the otters so he still did not know which was which. "Does anyone here know what Mr. Hida has turned into?"

"A Marowak," Tyra said, her voice coming out of a black box on one edge of the stone platform. "There's, um. Honestly his best bet on learning what his current species is actually like is probably asking some other members of it, because the information I have on hand is talking about wearing their parent's skulls."

"For some reason I can tell that this belonged to one of my ancestors, although I cannot put a name to which one," Chikara admitted out loud. "Which is strange, it also feels as if I should know which ancestor I wear the skull of."

"A recreation then," a blue and black dog man said from the other edge of the clearing. "I have heard of such a thing happening to your species when humans become them, or in other unusual cases. Bone keepers are quite dedicated to their ancestral skulls. There is one of their tomb-cities not too far from here. However, I'm not sure that you have the week that it would take to travel there and back."

"Sorry, borrowing the Ground types," a green leafy creature suddenly said as it appeared in the middle of his family. "Will bring them back later today." Then the elder Hida felt himself once more being transported to another place.

\---

Joe stared at the empty spot where a pixie had taken away the people he was in charge of. "You know, this honestly is something I should have expected," he said blandly to the Lucario, who turned out to be grumbling about idiot forest gods with an angry expression. "I don't suppose you have someone I can take out some stress on?" he asked, aware that the thoughts leading to that question were unusual, but not in the mood to bother with that concern.

"Joe, I'm fairly sure I'm supposed to stop you if you decide to get into a fight again," Gomamon noted in a tone that said he was not actually up for trying to do that. "So how about together this time?" the other Floatzel asked as he leaned against his partner.

\---

The old Sandslash glared at the time traveling god. "See, descendants, no need to go after Kyogre," the Celebi said in a nervous rush.

"Past me, this was a bad plan," the older looking version of the same creature said from where it had arrived a short time before, only for the younger to pop away and return with a bunch of Sandshrew and a lone Marowak. "They have a lot of problems to deal with, and Kyogre could have handled this."

"Uh, are we meeting my grandfather's family then?" the oldest Sandshrew asked uneasily. "Because I assumed that time travel would not be an option for that."

"Were you aware that time travel was possible?" the Marowak asked with considerable confusion at his daughter in law's casual discussion of that concept.

"Well, yes, his stories mentioned a Celebi," Fumiko said, looking critically at the two present. "Possibly even this specific Celebi," she growled. "They were not exactly favorable stories."

The younger two Sandshrew joined the family in glaring at the two forest pokemon. "Ah, um." Including the elder Sandslash and her side of the family's prior focus on the two Psychic/Grass types. "Maybe I should have been in less of a hurry?" the younger Celebi asked more than admitted.

"Grandfather?" the old Sandslash asked as she walked forward to look over the new arrivals. "So my lost son has had grandchildren before any of his family could return to our world?"

"Great grandmother, I'm sorry," Fumiko said at the implied question of her grandfather's survival. "It has been years since he passed, and we only just learned that other worlds were more than stories he told us. This is my father in law, Chikara Hida, and my sons, Cody and Armadillomon," she informed the elder, pointing to each of her family.

In a sudden motion the Sandslash's claws were being blocked by the Marowak's bone club. "Hmm, you are untrained, but this one has some skill. Did my son somehow end up getting the normal case backwards, and find himself in a human world?" the Sandslash asked, not letting the strike end. Her eyes, however, were locked on Fumiko's who did not break contact with that harsh gaze. "Good, you have the drive to learn despite that."

"My sons have become chosen ones," the mother Sandshrew said grimly. "We need all the power we can gather to save multiple worlds." She then opened the bag she was carrying to take out her maps. "And our world is vulnerable in a way that worries me greatly."

The elder Sandslash froze at the sight of the fault maps, her claw dropping from its place against the bone club. Quietly she made her way over and carefully looked over each of the documents. "You could not have found a better way to prove you are his grandchild," she quietly admitted after she had looked at them for a moment. "His maps are- were, a point of pride for him. I shall help as best I can."

\---

Joe could easily see the difference between himself and Gomamon when it came to being able to fight in new bodies. The other Floatzel was moving quite a bit more quickly, and could far more easily shift from one form of attack to another, while Joe was still working on just hitting hard enough for his current foes to feel it. Then again, he also had known better than to dig his teeth into these Steel types, which was a slightly strange bit of his new medical training to apply in practice.

"Why did we decide to fight chosen ones again?" one of the young Lucario they were facing asked as Gomamon slammed him into the ground.

"Because I didn't know the one I fought was the one that didn't usually fight," Joe's opponent from the day before complained from under the Digidestined's tired body. "I heard that he beat up a restaurant owner and thought he fought a lot."

"I got grabbed and nearly torn in half by a restaurant worker," Joe clarified unhappily. "And I was human at the time. It wasn't a fight at all, just another case of me getting myself somewhere that could have killed me."

"That makes things worse," the Riolu friend of the two newly evolved pokemon complained from where he had sat down at the edge of the small arena. "You've got experience when you couldn't possibly win too."

"Being held in the air by a living vegetable isn't that much experience," the former human noted, seeing that the group was apparently done with the battle. "Honestly it’s kind of scary how easy it was to fight you guys."

"That is actually a common thing for humans that come to this world to find," the older Lucario that was making sure they fought safely noted. "The change does not leave you unequipped to handle combat, and those humans who have experience with being around fights tend to pick up quite a few things about how to manage them during those battles."

"Honestly I'm not all that used to being able to fight at this size myself, Joe," Gomamon cautioned. "I mean, my school of Marching Fishes is really more of a distraction when things get tough, no matter how big all of them together look."

"A school of fighting fish?" one of the younger Lucario asked. "Like Wishiwashi?"

\---

Cody wasn't quite sure how to react to his current situation. Just about every part of his life had been turned upside down by this point. First he had found himself with an armadillo monster having to save another world. Then a different other world had invaded before they even had a chance to really adapt to that issue. That had somehow led to him switching bodies with his monster partner. Which then got his mother turned into a different sort of armadillo monster, only it was actually for some reason the shape she should have always been. He had not even had any time yet to think about how his father knew about the digital world before, or how instead of a monster ally he now had a twin brother.

That last one was quite obvious now that their only difference was the color of their tough scales. Scales that felt even more normal than the ones that he had possessed as an Armadillomon since they had both switched species, which at least confirmed that his mom really was supposed to look like this. That meant he was too, and thinking of himself as not being human was scary from how easy it was. Putting himself into those fights Armadillomon had been in was also far too easy, and his kendo practice only made that worse.

"Hmm, well I can tell which of you was trained by your grandfather," his great uncle said after the practice battle to see how strong they were. "Although I'm not sure how to take the fact that it is the other one of you that's actually been in real fights before. I would think that even if you've only fought with weapons it would give you some ability in that field."

"Ah'm the one of us that's been a monster before all o' this started," Armadillomon noted as he looked at his hands thoughtfully. "Although it's rather odd how it don't feel that different to be this kind of monster instead."

"I wonder how much of that is this world," their grandfather noted looking over the bone he had suddenly been holding when they arrived. "I do not have the ancestry you both do, but I still do not feel that strange, despite now having a tail."

Cody was embarrassed by how he then took a moment to realize why that was strange, and the fact that seemed to be a common reaction from the pokemon present in the clearing did not help. He had not even had his tail for a week and it already seemed stranger to not have one than to have one. Even the fight, using his shell of hard scales and tiny claws instead of armor and a shinai, had been enjoyable to experience.

"Great granddaughter, you need to respect your limits!" they heard the elder Sandslash shout from where his mother was having her own practice battle. "No matter how desperate you are to gain strength, you need to not harm yourself while seeking it." Next to her his mother was barely standing, clearly exhausted. "No more today, or tomorrow if you insist on not resting."

"We only have today here," his mother insisted. "I won't, I won't have another chance to train with you."

"Unfortunately she's right," the older plant time traveler said. "Her sons have an effect on them that is based on time passed, and throwing that off isn't something I did. I also do not recall bringing them now again." He looked around unhappily for his younger self. "Which is something I would be telling myself actually, if I wasn't such an idiot back now."

Cody's great-great grandmother paused at that, and looked seriously at his mom. "Then let us cover the more important lessons while we can, instead of simple combat that you can learn from any pokemon."

\---

"Joe, I need one of these," Gomamon said as the massive fish shaped construct made of smaller fish decided that firing a beam of water was a good way to demonstrate their usefulness on a team.

"What will your normal fish think if you replace them with pokemon?" Joe dully asked his partner/brother. They were only by a river running near the town, but the fish seemed just as willing to throw themselves through the air as the Marching Fishes to make up for the lack of water to move around in.

"Given how much they complain about being put into danger every time, I half expect them to throw a party," the other Floatzel complained. "Alright guys, before you get too gung ho about this maybe you should listen to the kind of messes I get into." He then told the school of fish a very short version of the whole story of his life.

"Like that will stop them," the older Lucario that had brought them to the river complained as the story progressed. "We should probably pay you two if you manage to get that menace made of fish out of the river." The fish monster looked a bit smug at this statement, and Joe simply had to sigh at how this obviously meant that he was definitely going to have them working with Gomamon.

There was then a flash of light depositing four Ground types and an annoyed looking forest spirit. "My past self got distracted, and apparently I forgot that my future self delivered this group back in time," Celebi grumbled. "Do me a favor, and when you see me in town tell me to go pick this group up."

"So did you all have a good time in the past?" Joe asked idly of the family. "We beat up some canines and caught some fish while we were waiting."

"I was able to meet my great grandmother and get some help with the fault line issues," Fumiko happily replied, tightly holding a bag full of trinkets and papers.

"We got a bit of training in how to fight," Cody said for himself and Armadillomon.

"I believe I have a better appreciation for how my daughter in law has felt about this change," Chikara said in a tone that told Joe he would probably also agree about how strange this all looked in hindsight when everyone was back to normal. "I'm also considering finding time to visit the town of my current species that the Lucario mentioned," he added more thoughtfully.

"Well I'm glad you had a good time," Joe informed them before blasting the Celebi with the strongest burst of water he could manage. Nobody seemed to disagree with this decision.

\---

"Marching Fishes!" Gomamon called out, quickly followed by a crashing sound as the suddenly empowered Wishiwashi slammed through the rock barriers that Delta 2 had made for them to test this attempt at improving the digimon's attack.

Joe cringed a bit at how much damage the now cheering pile of fish caused, and a small part of him wished he had not asked to be able to understand pokemon as a human to better interact with his partner's new partners. "Well, they seem fine with the teleporting. Did you know you were teleporting fish?" he asked the seal digimon.

"Kind of," Gomamon said thoughtfully. "Although, I think I see some other colors in there. Are you guys all working together now?" he asked with a hint of annoyance, getting giggling fish in response. "This is going to be a lot odder than it seemed when I was a pokemon."

"I'm genuinely surprised," Delta 2 said nearby to the Hida family, as they finished a post trip checkup. "You are all totally back to the state you left in. So for once we don't have any new issues."

Cody was once more an Armadillomon, and looking somewhat annoyed by not having hand-like forelimbs anymore. His mother was unchanged, and distracted with notes and maps she had taken out while the others got looked over. His brother and grandfather were human again, and both seemed to be considering their current condition thoughtfully. "That is something of a relief," Chikara Hida noted aloud, then turned to look at Joe. "I think I can better understand now why you all felt this transformation was so important to speak with the families about. Just that short time in another form was, insightful, about what being something other than a human is like."

"Speaking from experience, even just the difference between digimon and pokemon is rather big," Gomamon added frowning at his fish. "For instance, now that I'm less of a fighter having a group of fish that can break mountains apart is a bit more intimidating. Should help a lot, but still something I'm going to need to get used to."


	80. 4-10 Training Time

\--- Training Time ---

"Alright everyone," Fumiko Hida cheerfully said as the group gathered in one of the many digital worlds DSS possessed. "We only have about two days before you're back to normal, and then it will still be a bit before we can train you guys instead of just your siblings again. So to make the most of this time we're going to be spending most of the rest of it training!"

The digital world had been furnished by Gazimon into a small arena with a set of stands and a short refrigerator for drinks and snacks. Patamon, Davey, Gatomon, Hawk, Armadillomon, Sora, and Biyomon were all sitting on the stands to support their partners. T.K. and Yolei were both currently on the sidelines at the base of the stands glaring at Cody's mother, while the shelled digimon was at the edge of the arena with a calm expression. Kari and Davis were standing in middle of the area, with the group deciding that they would start things off beforehand. Fumiko, Cody's grandfather, Gomamon, and Joe were along the sidelines opposite the stands acting as referees.

"So, that explains why they're doing that, but why is my human a pokemon for this one?" Gomamon asked with annoyance as his Wishiwashi/Marching Fishes floated in a fish shaped mass behind him. "I've already had two days of him getting into fights this week, and this time I'm not battle mad from being one myself."

"Goma, I'm the only transformed Digidestined we have that's been in a fight before," Joe noted.

"I'm fairly sure you were complaining about that two days ago, Joe," Biyomon noted unhappily. "You almost sounded excited just now."

The Floatzel blinked at that, and then to the other's unease took a moment to respond. "Okay, thank you for pointing that out, I'm probably going to need someone to keep an eye on me while I'm like this," he said unhappily. "This form really does make that kind of thing fun. Seem fun, it seems fun when I'm like this." Fumiko nodded in agreement while the rest of the group simply looked at him dubiously.

"Joe, that's not actually an answer for why you’re a pokemon right now," Gomamon sighed. "Maybe instead I should ask how you ended up one in the time it took for you to get here?"

"Blame our two Veemon, Alpha 45 has got a working version of the amulet-thing that goes the other way around," Joe replied looking over at Davis while holding up a small yellow stone hung around his neck. "I'm apparently their go to Digidestined for testing stuff, and the guy who is supposed to be trying this first is still stuck as a pokemon from something else."

"I'm not sure what to think about that option," Chikara Hida quietly mumbled.

"Um, as strange as that is, could we get a move on?" the Flamedramon asked. "I'm kind of wasting energy here." Davis then frowned as his BlackGatomon opponent giggled at this reality.

"I agree, it's no good if he has an excuse to stop early," Kari noted in a sinister tone.

"Alright then," Cody's grandfather said seriously. "We want to start off by seeing how your current capabilities stack up. So, the rules are to only use weak attacks until you have a handle on how strong you are, and that when you are down you stay down."

"Until we are sure you can fight without going too far, either against your opponent or with how long you fight yourself, we do not want you to seriously battle," his daughter in law firmly stated. "Now, I've heard that digimon can go back in evolution when you take enough damage, but we want to train to avoid that here." She sounded entirely perplexed by the idea of returning to a previous evolution. "Our first goal is to learn how to both fight a digimon without bringing them past that point, and to also be able to know when to leave a fight before you reach that point."

The two combatants both nodded a bit nervously about the idea of fighting each other that much. Kari even looked somewhat embarrassed by how her somewhat harsh joke was being taken completely seriously. After a moment Chikara lifted his hand, and then the two immediately began to move as he let it fall. The Flamedramon quickly fired off a trio of fireballs, which the BlackGatomon ducked under to slam her paw into his chest, sending the lizard man to the ground.

"Okay, Davey, I think I might have some problems with how we've been treating you guys if that is a normal thing," Davis groaned as he stood back up.

"Yeah, fireballs are a bit more worrying when you're moving closer to the guy making them," Kari agreed with an uneasy flex of her claws.

"Huh, I hadn't actually thought about what I was doing there," her opponent said a bit uneasily and looked at his own claws.

After that they made a few more attempts at fighting. Kari was able to keep from being hit, but seemed to take it worse when she was, while Davis was easily getting back up from the held back attacks, but having trouble with connecting with the cat digimon.

"I think you should have added a bit of a twist to that Kari," Fumiko noted thoughtfully as the two of them got back to their original position for another attempt. "That way your claws would dig in more and make it more likely your enemies would be distracted by the pain." Joe nodded in agreement with this statement while the rest of the group simply silently stared at the Sandshrew.

"Hmm, that is a good point," her father in law agreed after a moment while everyone else waited to hear that it was just a joke. "Although I'm not sure how applicable it would be against their current foes. Do we know if the crystal creatures can flinch?"

"I've seen them do it," Cody admitted a touch uneasily. "It's hard to get them to that point, they seem really single minded and mostly just ignore that sort of thing as much as they can."

"Uh, are we really saying to have Kari try and shred my scales like that?" Davis asked uneasily, then frowned as the cat digimon gave him a smirk at that statement. He blinked in response to that reaction, and then surprised everyone. "You, don't actually like me very much, do you?" The Digidestined cringed at this question, and their nervous faces were answer enough for the digimon. "You were really happy to fight me first, and when we figured out that I could take the hits you started going a lot harder really quickly," he listed a bit sadly. "Huh. I didn't know I was being that much of a jerk. Can I stop for now? I want to have the energy to stay like this a bit longer to think about that," he noted with resignation.

"Davis, it," Kari started, but didn't seem to know how to finish her reply. After a moment both of the digimon moved over to the sidelines unhappily.

\---

Takeru "T.K." Takaishi was having a horrible week, and getting into fights for barely any reason seemed to be the perfect way to finish it off with another annoyance. They weren't even sure if he'd survive Armor Evolution, which was part of the worst news he could have possibly gotten about the reality of that fight with Devimon on File Island. Patamon wasn't strong enough to survive evolving then, and he possibly wasn't strong enough to survive it now, all because his Crest was for a power so strong it resulted in Champions that fought Ultimates and Ultimates that fought Megas. So far he had already had nightmares of being the one to break apart into data to save Patamon's new human form, and a return of the one where the Arrow of Hope was too much for Matt and Gabumon to handle.

He sighed from atop his partner’s head, where he'd moved after learning that the news on his ability to participate wasn't in yet and he would probably not even get a chance to try until tomorrow. Yolei was currently nervously fumbling on four legs in her armor evolution while Cody seemed distracted with looking at the ground. Davis seemed to be caught up in thinking about lots of things, and the idea that everyone could actually change how they think when they evolved was scary enough that T.K. didn't want to linger on the idea very long.

"Did I go too far with Davis?" Kari quietly asked, jumping up to a bench behind Patamon so she could speak quietly enough that Davis hopefully couldn't hear her, and forcing T.K. to consider the topic.

"Honestly, I'd say you probably went at him how you would have fought anyone today," he admitted unhappily. "But, considering how we've been about his crush before all of this happened that might actually be a bit nicer than normal." Kari was fairly quick to make slight jokes at his expense whenever the kid made a pass at her, so he could fully understand taking it out on Davis a bit in a match.

"I'd almost feel better if I could say it was the BlackGatomon thing," the black cat digimon complained. "Then making him feel bad would at least be something I could blame on that mistake."

The temporary Patamon shifted uneasily at that, making the normal one sigh and pick him up to put on the higher bench next to Kari. Her own permanent evolution was a topic he was entirely unsure about. "Are you sure that was like what happened to Agumon?" he asked. "Maybe it was just whatever decides what we turn into trying to stop you from giving away your tail ring." The more detailed lecture on items that were a part of you was a frightening topic on its own, although learning that humans in the pokemon world would often bond with their own clothing enough to protect it from battle damage was an interesting possible explanation for how his outfit had lasted months in the digital world.

"Okay, I like that idea," she replied with a very sinister looking smile. T.K. just had to laugh at how that was the first thing he could think of about Kari's face. "What's so funny?"

"You know, if you tried on someone that doesn't know you, I'm sure that you can make them think you're really evil," he replied, mood lifted by the odd sight.

"You are aware that you are a small fuzzy thing, and I'm a cat, right?" she asked darkly, then broke down into giggles of her own. "What's stopping me from-" She paused to smother her laughter. "Just having you for a snack?"

"I've seen lots of digimon try and make a Patamon into a snack, it doesn't go well," he joked back.

"T.K., please don't bring me into this," his partner groaned.

\---

Cody knew he needed to talk with his mother more in this body. Digmon could apparently instinctively feel the nature of the ground around them, and he could tell quite a few of those important little details his great-great grandmother had spoken with them about in the past.

All of this was very distracting to the temporary digimon, and that only made how poorly Yolei was doing worse. She kept stumbling over her own legs, clearly trying to rear up on her hind ones every time she moved. Her attacks were wispy and unfocused, as if she didn't think she should be able to do them and as a result put too little effort into it. Her aim seemed nonexistent, and Cody was actually worried she was going to hit one of the others before she came close to hitting him. Every part of that knowledge was something he could tell was because she was failing to be a monster, and where he now knew he had a natural advantage in learning the correct way of doing it because he'd accepted that he simply was one. Two of the three monster forms he'd been in so far either had to or could walk on all fours, and he'd spent a good amount of time the day before training as a Sandshrew for the combat parts.

"Yolei, perhaps you should simply practice nearby until you are more comfortable with moving," his grandfather suggested after another shot sliced the edge of the arena, stopped by the strange glowing barrier that only seemed to work on attacks.

"I don't even want to be like this," Yolei complained darkly, finally saying out loud what had been rather obvious to Cody the entire time. "I don't want to learn how to fight like this, I just want it to be over so I can just be a normal human again."

"Some days, I wonder if you new kids have it too easy," T.K. said aloud, and Cody flinched at the harsh statement. "I mean, do you think this is the first time our enemies have turned us into stuff?" The other original Digidestined tensed noticeably at this statement, and that clearly said that when it happened before was a bad time for them. "At least this time we have the option of fighting instead of our partners. It isn't like we were turned to stone, or key chains." The Patamon flapped down to stand in front of the Halsemon. "I can tell you now, if those enemies had still been an issue after those times they would have done it again. We should at least be ready for Upload to do this again."

"Delta 2 is already working on fixing us if this happens again," the bird digimon countered with a growl. "We don't need to worry about that after this is done." Cody was fairly sure that was his friend grasping at straws, as they would still need a way of using whatever solution they had in the digital world.

"I'm not even in your situation and I'm on three days in a row," Joe said blandly, his float puffing up a bit and drawing attention to his changes. "Although I guess with how the rest of your team is learning to fight you can just help with other stuff from the sidelines."

"Very funny Joe," Gomamon said, and Cody could see most of the older kids giggling at the statement, T.K. was still just glaring at Yolei though. "Maybe you want to see how Wishiwashi here can help me contribute now?"

"Gomamon, Joe, not now," T.K. said strongly. "This isn't a joke. We are stuck like this, they can do it again, and our partners will be in danger if we can't step in when that happens. Although I wonder if you-"

"T.K.," Kari spoke up and stomped over to the digimon. "You're supposed to be helping to keep me from going too far, not going there yourself."

"Right!" Joe said more loudly. "I'd say you new kids need a break. So how about I help Gomamon's new fish show off a bit?" Cody shuffled uneasily over to his mother as the others went over to the stands.

\---

Today was already a bad day with Davis' realization that she actually didn't like him as much as he had thought. He was an alright person but far too full of himself, and not in the way her brother had been. Now she had to worry about T.K. and Yolei too. Kari had already gouged strips off the bottom of two of the benches so far while no one was looking in frustration.

"You really don't like being like that do you?" she asked the Patamon with a slightly annoyed tone, or maybe a very annoyed one, it was a bit hard to tell since her evolution. "That's really why you were so mad at her, she was saying it even though the rest of us are just dealing with the issue quietly."

"Davis and Cody seem to be enjoying it, and you're not having problems," her friend noted unhappily.

"Davis doesn't seem to notice anything different, Cody is apparently supposed to be a monster, and I got myself turned into an evil version of my partner," she replied bluntly, then flinched as Gomamon's new giant fish shaped school of fish somehow managed to produce a massive blast of water, that Joe slid around surprisingly easily. "Also you missed Joe," the cat digimon pointed out tiredly.

"I've had Joe attack a digimon to save me before, this honestly just makes me less worried about him," T.K. complained as Joe somehow matched that move with his own water attack. "Though this might be going a bit too far." He sighed as the Floatzel slid out of the way of another attack by Gomamon's new fish monster. "I can feel that I need to protect Patamon. Not just want to protect him, I need to do it."

"Because we're the digimon now, and that's what digimon do for their human partners," she agreed unhappily. That same sensation was clear to her, and how far she now thought to go to keep Gatomon safe was one of the scary parts of her new evolved form. A BlackGatomon with a partner would destroy any enemies of that partner by any means, and Kari could tell that for a dark digimon like herself 'destroy' could mean far worse things than just killing those enemies. "Wait, you're already protective of him," she noted as she thought about how that would change her friend's actions, then felt herself pale, even if it couldn't be seen through her fur. "So you have extra issues with it."

"I can't even really participate in this to make me feel better, because my Digivice supercharges the digimon so much that evolving might actually kill me if I tried," T.K. complained, and Kari could not respond to that. Patamon had died the first time he evolved, and despite having missed that event she couldn't have not known that given how important it was for them. "Yeah, I'm not exactly happy with Gennai about that little detail," he said clearly seeing the realization on her face.

"Oof, and I was thinking that 'makes the digimon evil' was as bad as it could get," she complained.

"Well, apparently my case is how bad it had to be for Izzy to actually tell us about it," T.K. allowed unhappily. "I've known about as long as we've been transformed."

"He's also not left me alone the entire time," Patamon cut in with his own annoyance. "I may not have gotten a hat, but he's been trying to act like one. I can handle not being able to fight for a week T.K., especially since this is the first place we've been where there is even the chance of it happening."

"At least you aren't having to stop her from fighting with the cat," Gatomon added with a sigh. "Which is honestly extra annoying because now I'm embarrassed because I did it too sometimes."

"Uh, Miko is a cat. Fighting between us on occasion is just part of having more than one cat," Kari said with a smirk, glad for the distraction.

\---

Yolei simply sat on her haunches while the oldest of the Digidestined fought a fish shaped monster made out of smaller fish. Everything was insane right now, and nobody seemed to think that they should be trying to get things back to normal. She had even just transformed into another kind of monster before she had been able to be human again.

"You're trying too hard," Sora said kindly as she flew over to land by Yolei's forelegs. "To control yourself, you're trying to think of everything yourself instead of just using the knowledge we get from being a digimon."

"I just want to be normal again," the Halsemon complained with grumble that barely fit human language. "It isn't that I don't want Hawkmon to be safe, or don't know that we can't stop them from doing this again. I just want things to get fixed so we can go back to how it used to be."

Sora looked at her sadly, and then her own wing, before sighing. "I don't think 'normal' is going to come back this time," the pink bird digimon told her bluntly. "Honestly, a part of me is wondering if it ever came back, or if we just pretended that it did." This was definitely the thing Yolei least wanted to hear, so she turned her head away from the other bird digimon. "T.K. is probably right about you guys having it a lot easier than we did, but I wouldn't wish that on someone else, even if this pokemon world has it as some sort of strange rite of passage."

"What does having it easier have to do with being made into monsters," Yolei grumbled, not really intending for the other girl to hear her.

"Honestly, I can see where Joe is coming from there," Sora replied anyway, and pointed at the otter monster. "Being able to fight instead of just running around hoping that we wouldn't get hit while our partners did everything they could to win would have been a lot better, at least as long as we could handle that. Not to mention all the times when we were trying to get food and had to just hope that the digimon could find or catch it for us. Even just hiding from some of our enemies would have been easier if we could pretend we were just normal digimon like this." The Biyomon sighed again. "You new kids don't need to worry about what you need to do just to survive to see the next day."

"You're serious," Yolei said working the idea that the older girl was through her head. That the older kids really thought they could die, maybe even thought that they would die, wasn't what she expected. "It was really that bad?" she asked turning to look Sora in the eye.

There was a sort of despair there, an old injury that was plain to see but what exactly it was Yolei couldn't tell. "It was worse sometimes. I hope that you never have to go as far as we went," Sora said simply, and Yolei wasn't sure she wanted a clearer answer. Sora didn't seem up for giving one either. "Now, are you willing to at least try and go along with your digimon instincts for this?"

\---

Davis slid across the arena to dodge the cracking ground, and countered with a slightly staggered trio of fireballs towards the armored beetle he was fighting. He really thought that he might grow to hate being smarter when he evolved, even if it did make it easier to learn while doing things as Flamedramon. The worst part was that it was combat instincts that had told him Kari wasn't holding back as much as he was, that she was more willing than him to fight.

If he had gone up against Yolei he'd probably be working to keep from taking out his frustrations on her, but Cody seemed to be even more dangerous than Kari with how easily the digimon was reacting. Like how he casually swatted the first and second fireballs out of the air and let the last one simply miss, before throwing his drills towards Davis in guided arcs that the lizard monster could only barely dodge. Even then two of the spinning weapons still scraped against his scales in a near miss.

Joe's fight against his partner's new fish monster had showed them how far they could go with a bit of practice, and Davis was eager to reach that point. So he moved close quickly, cloaking himself in flames to speed up and prepare, so that before the drills returned he could try and get a burning slash of his own claws onto the other armored digimon without being blocked again.

This partially worked, but Davis was disappointed with how their armor evolutions seemed to be far more focused on defense than the average Champion digimon. Admittedly he had only fought one of each of those himself, but from everything he'd seen overall it was a trend. Cody quickly moved back after taking the hit, and the two of them made their ways back to their own side of the arenas.

"I think I might need to go back to Rookie for a bit," Davis confessed unhappily. "I don't think I'm up for another without losing the evolution midway right now." He had reverted once already, and the slight confusion he had felt as a Veemon over some of the things he had been considering was still not fun, even if he was getting used to it.

"We're probably done for the day anyway," Cody's mom said looking over everyone. "I think we have a better idea how to improve, and we only really have one more day before we'd need to wait for these forms to be an option for all of you again."

Davis nodded at this and moved over to Davey, who still looked a bit worried about the way they were attempting this. "Ready to go home?" he asked his brother.

"Yeah," the temporary human agreed with a nod. "Uh, Davis, are we going to be doing that for me and the other digimon when we're digimon again too?"

"Yes? Why wouldn't we?" Davis asked.

"Oh, no reason, it should be... fun," Davey said clearly unhappy with that news.

\---

Chikara Hida quietly walked over to Janice after they had finished. "Miss Grades, I was wondering if you knew what the proper method of apologizing to pokemon gods? I feel my actions with the time god we encountered yesterday were unacceptable," he asked seriously.

"Joe already asked about that, and the answer is quite simply, don't worry about it," the Troubleshooter Team Lead replied seriously.

"That's the nice way of putting it. I was told 'he probably deserved it' for being worried about outright attacking the guy," the Floatzel complained. "And yeah, I know it’s going to look bad again when I'm human again, but right now he just seems like a stronger monster, even if Celebi is some kind of time god."

"Celebi is a forest god, not a time god," a new voice said as a massive black, red, and gold pokemon emerged from a black shadow along a wall. "If it is the specific one I've heard about from Janice's home-universe then we even know the specific forest. Did I catch the otherworlders this time? I want to hear about this universe not made by the Creator from its inhabitants."

"Giratina, we wanted to figure out a good way of explaining you first," Janice complained with a sigh.

"Wait, they can time travel," Joe pointed out confused, and slightly worried by the new arrival. The others quickly gathered closer to inspect the Ghost/Dragon pokemon. "How isn't that something that makes them time gods?"

"Well, it’s mostly what they were created to do. Celebi are made to be the embodiment of forests, which is different from my little brother's existence as the embodiment of time," Giratina clarified. "A good example is probably the Porygon Box Administrators, they are each gods of their own digital worlds, and while they can do things other than managing those worlds the only thing they are really gods of are those worlds."

The Digidestined and the adult Hidas all blinked at this clarification. "Wait, our new boss is a god too?" Gomamon asked disbelievingly.

"I'm a bit more concerned about the fact that one of the original three creations of Arceus is in the room with us," Fumiko said faintly. "Great ruler of the Ghosts, why are you here?"

The Legendary pokemon paused noticeably at that statement. "Okay, just to be clear there is a different Giratina for Janice's home-universe, and I don't know if they are a 'ruler of Ghosts' or not, but personally I just let them live in my world," he said a touch bluntly. "Half the time they don't even listen to me in there, let alone anywhere else."

"The 'embodiment of time' is your younger brother," Yolei asked with confused emphasis on 'younger'.

"Well, technically the three of us were all created at the same time, but that's more because it’s kind of hard to have things happen 'before' time existed," Giratina explained, then looked over at Janice. "The whole story of how the universe was created is a bit complex, do we have time for me to go over it?"

"I'd rather not learn the story of how everything was created today," Janice replied rubbing a hand across her face. "How about we have Joe tell you about his world tomorrow instead?"

Giratina looked at the confused and uneasy faces of the visitors for a moment. "Alright, I guess that will be better," he allowed, and then left through another shadow.

"Did we just meet a creator of the universe?" T.K. asked uneasily.

"I'm trying to work out if you should add an 'again' to that question," Gatomon noted unhappily.

"It's a long story, but yes. Giratina helped with finding where Upload went, and we're helping him out with some things," Janice confirmed. "Just, just don't worry about Legendary pokemon or gods or anything like that right now. We can deal with that mess later."

\---

Sora and Biyomon lingered as the other groups left one by one. The wait for the others to be on their way led to her getting the full explanation of the incredibly intimidating nature of the DSS pokemon storage system from A-0 as it tried to explain why they weren't actually gods. That had not worked at all for making them seem less powerful, and instead it only left her terrified of how many digital worlds her little sister might be making in their own world that the Digidestined would need to deal with after this was all over.

The sight of Joe coming over to her while still in his new otter form when the others were gone wasn't much better. "You know you could have turned yourself back, right? We aren't going to mind you being human just because we aren't," she told him unhappily.

"Well, just like I worry about being a pokemon again when I'm human, I'm kind of worried about how badly I'm going to end up panicking about things that aren't that big a deal when I'm human again," the pokemon replied, and Sora could feel herself flinch at that statement. "Especially this god stuff. I freaked out a lot yesterday after I turned back, because suddenly attacking a pokemon that messed with me was terrible just because the guy could travel through time."

"Joe, that still seems like a problem to me," Gomamon complained as he joined them. "I mean, I get the bit where it made sense when it was happening. Pokemon apparently think hitting each other is an everyday thing to do. Which honestly explains why today was a pokemon idea."

Joe blinked at this, and Sora was a bit worried with how actually looked a little insulted about the way his partner was describing pokemon. "So, you are worried about being human again?" she asked instead of going back to the topic of pokemon gods. Although the question did remind her of how HackBiyomon found humanity uncomfortable after being a digimon.

"I'm more worried about how badly I'm going to react when I'm human again," he clarified. "Having long arms and the ability to actually interact with our world is more useful most of the time than being able to create water or fight. I wouldn't even be really unhappy to not be like this again, it's mostly the change itself that has me uneasy right now."

"Yeah, I can understand missing that," she agreed, then reluctantly decided to get to her point. "So, I had an interesting visitor this week," she began.

Joe looked at her strangely at this. "Before you get too far into a story, I have some work to finish up," he interrupted her, and then walked over to pick up a small black device and handed it to her. "Here, this is your new 'gatecrasher'. Apparently I'm the one who has to give you yours, because its special feature is a reason to give me another thing on my plate. The two red lights are how many trips to or from the digital world it can do, it recharges over a day, just point it at the gate to immediately travel through, and after you get HackBiyomon to configure it pressing down on the other light should take you to an Upload base."

Sora took a moment to process that last bit. "Wait you know?" she asked with an involuntary surprised chirp sound.

"I've got a rather simple explanation of it this morning," he dully said, unhappy with her response. "It does make sense that a group of thieves on the run from the law isn't about to stop to conquer some world they don't care about without a good reason. Which means we need to figure out how to keep that from the others. I'm pretty sure Davis isn't up for hiding that fact, and I don't even want to think about how Yolei will react to it."

"Yeah," the bird digimon agreed unhappily. "I was planning on telling you right now, but I don't know what to do about the others."

"There is one thing I want to warn you about Upload," Joe said seriously. "Just because they're trying to help us doesn't mean that they don't have their own goals too. Siblings don't always help you with something just because they want things to be better for you."

"Joe, she thought she was doing Biyomon a favor by using this specific plan," Sora said tiredly. "And after the argument we had here today I need to make sure she knows this idea she now knows is bad is something they need to keep doing."

"Uggh, I had not even thought that we'd need to tell the 'bad' guys stuff to make sure that it isn't figured out too," Joe complained. "I really wish we only had to worry about getting everyone into better shape to fight." Sora shook her head at the casual way he had just mentioned getting ready to fight.


	81. 4-11 Local Recruitment

\--- Local Recruitment ---

Ken Ichijouji gripped the arms of his chair tightly as Wormmon shouted out orders to his Elite Team. The young genius wasn't up for another costly failure, more of his core of strong Champion digimon freed from his control by red crystal monsters and taken into their lands never to be seen again, but that looked to be the case yet again. Right now his best was led by a Dark Tyranomon that was currently encountering a far larger than anticipated force of the serpent crystals.

"Have them fall back," the Digimon Emperor told his subordinate unhappily. "This is not a viable target." Admitting that out loud would have been unthinkable before the real enemy had shown itself.

"Elites, fall back to base. Make sure you are all able to escape," Wormmon dutifully instructed the team. "Ken, we know that they must have something important there," he dully noted. "We need to find some way of getting past these armies."

"I know Wormmon!" Ken countered angrily, unable to deny the fact. "You’re my tutorial voice, and all of that complaining about making them unhappy, or having them fight each other was supposed to be so I could actually build up my forces. I get it!"

"Ken," the digimon started, and then sighed and turned back to the computer instead of continuing. "Enemy forces seem to be focusing on the Dark Rings again." Then the screen showed the black band around the Dark Tyranomon's arm shatter.

"Shut it off Wormmon, I'm not in the mood to watch more failure right now," he ordered unhappily. Then flinched at the map that replaced the video signal. The crystal red squares covered at least as much territory as his own black squares, and while he had managed to get the local defenses along the borders strong enough to stop attacks it was clear that it would only take them more effort to defeat him while he still could not strike back.

"We can still stop them, Ken," Wormmon quietly said at the dismal display. "I'm sure we can."

\---

"Why, exactly, did you think we would let your diner keep operating after we took over?" Alice asked the obstinate egg monster tiredly.

"I'll have you know that it took the Dark Masters reshaping the entire world to send us out of operation before," Digitamamon complained. The powerful digimon had been a possible complication for Upload, but seemed to be rather afraid of the Architect's abilities.

"We're only here to finish off the Stones," Absol said unhappily. "Which means that this is a place we don't want to let fall into the Emperor's control again. Just let him overcharge for his food in peace."

The digimon didn't seem too surprised about their goal, and walked off grumbling as a pair of Shrines lifted the final Destiny Stone into the air. Hackware material immediately began to cover the golden ring around the artifact, forming a layer covered with symbols common to other Hackware technologies.

"Control established, linking to other units," the Architect said with a touch of glee. "Activating reproductions 1 through 20." He paused for a moment and then watched the ring flash with a dull red color. "And we have our artificial Destiny Stones online and functional." He floated up next to the crystal. "Now all that remains is to reinforce and configure the transport security for this entire world to our own desires."

"There we go, major disasters averted," Absol said with relief. "Now they will need to dig us out of this world in order to get those big disasters going again."

Naturally this was the moment the sky darkened and a giant cloud dragon appeared. "Alright, I have to admit, the new bad guys fixing things for me is a new one," the digimon rumbled with confusion after it finished spiraling down. "In fact just about every part of this whole thing is backwards enough that I'm wondering when the trick was, or if it just hasn't happened yet."

"How bad is this?" Bob asked braced on all four of his legs as the various Hybrids took on their armored forms.

"I don't believe it," the Dark/Ghost/Fire hybrid pokemon sighed. "Well, he's stronger than I thought possible, but he also has minimal impact on any future disasters."

"There is no way someone this dangerous looking isn't important," HackBiyomon hissed, an impressive feat in her currently human form. "That is some kind of threat to someone important."

"He's half crippled and was barely managing the issue we just fixed," the white furred canine complained. "He's able to help with the eventual fallout if we keep him alive, but it will be years before he's back in the state where it isn't risking that survival to have him actually try and help in an appropriate battle."

"Okay, that was a bunch of things I'm fairly sure I should have been telling you all," the sky dragon noted. "If I even wanted you to know about any of that in the first place. So 'knows too much' definitely is a factor here." He then huffed with annoyance. "I am Azulongmon, one of the Digimon Sovereigns tasked with protecting the digital world. I had been bound by the power of the Control Spires, but your actions have now drastically reduced their ability to disrupt the fabric of this world. I had hoped that the Digidestined would be able to use the advancements we Sovereigns had given them to save us, but your arrival has altered things considerably."

"Yes, I'm fully aware of that," Absol countered harshly. "It is rather obvious. We are trying to get things onto a viable track for them to finish fixing things properly."

"Although we have caused them some issues," HackBiyomon added, and then in a flash of light returned to her digimon form. "That timing was not on purpose, but it does give an example of my contribution to that issue."

"I think I've missed some critical things. Could you perhaps explain your side of these events?" Azulongmon questioned with considerably more confusion than before.

\---

Ken made his way to the large chamber unhappily, with his digimon partner following close behind. The remaining members of his Elite Team had returned, and despite his disappointment with the latest losses he could not afford to avoid checking how many were left. With a quick movement he surged to the railing of the raised catwalk over the area he had been using to inspect the team, cape billowing from the movement.

In front of him, looking rather unimpressed, was Dark Tyranomon. Her massive form stood at the front of almost the entire Elite Team, and the Digimon Emperor's eyes were quickly drawn to the total lack of a Dark Ring on her body. He could hear Wormmon tense at the appearance of an uncontrolled digimon in the middle of his base, and for a moment he found himself worried about how there was nothing worth mentioning between him and her potential attacks.

"Well boss man, we're back," she rumbled meeting his glasses. "Got a better idea for next time?"

"Why?" Ken asked, for a moment fully aware of just how impossible this moment should have been. "What made you come back when nobody else has?" he continued more angrily.

"Digimon are vanishing from the crystal lands," Dark Tyranomon said gravely. "Without a trace, and with no hint of being reborn. Gone like my brother was gone after he went to try and conquer the other world. I don't want to see others lose their friends like I lost him. Supposedly the Digidestined are enough to handle any issue like this, but honestly I'm willing to put my life on your armies, 'Emperor', before I'd rely on them to win against these crystal armies." She looked back at the sinister expressions on the other powerful digimon. "Besides, I know that we're fairly well suited to an evil army anyway."

"And you're just going to let me put Dark Rings on you again?" he asked bluntly to cover his unease over that logic. "I haven't exactly seen lines of digimon heading towards my forces for that yet."

"Yeah, well you also aren't handing out the good stuff to just anyone that shows up," the digital dinosaur countered. "I know dark forces well enough to tell those new bands were better than the old ones, and I can feel how they stop the field from your towers that actually stops the little ones from slicing them apart." She chuckled darkly. "If you can turn that into making me stronger then even better. All I want to ask is you let me use my own mind instead of failing to complete the damn objective because I can't think a problem through."

Ken was actually starting to get used to digimon giving him more uneasy questions after he tried to chase them away. "Alright, I think we can do that," he agreed darkly. "I'm sure that you'd be eager to test out new equipment with an attitude like that."

"Ha! You bet," she actually agreed. "Give me whatever you got." She smiled widely. "I want to hear those crystals shatter."

\---

"Alright everyone it’s just about time for you all to go back to normal," Delta 2 told the assembled Digidestined as they arrived from their training area. "We are, well honestly we're expecting something to go wrong and if it doesn't then we will be pleasantly surprised."

"I'm here so we have an extra target for something to go wrong to," Joe quietly complained while looking at his orange pendant. He was human for the moment, but everyone noted how the transformation trinket was still with him.

"The plan is to send you all over to the digimon world after you switch back, and then have you return to your world using a digital gate in order to fully return to normal," Tyra told the assembled humans and digimon. "Then we bring you all back here for the follow up checkups and to deal with any complications from the first two parts. Cody and Armadillomon are both going to be taking pendants with them just in case either of those triggers them becoming pokemon, which is honestly the expected outcome."

"Wait, we're just expecting Cody to still be a monster after all of this?" Yolei angrily questioned, then looked shocked when Cody sighed tiredly at the question.

"Yolei, I'm a Sandshrew the same way my mom is," Cody said simply. "I'm actually a bit worried now that I will still end up human first."

"Actually, the case we're looking at might be that you end up a digital human every time you use the digital gates," the Porygon-2 Administrator told the armored digimon. "The bigger concern is if your brother also ends up a pokemon after returning through the gate, or stays a digimon."

"Wait, ah might end up being a 'shrew again?" Armadillomon asked uncertainly.

"We probably shouldn't go over the actual list of things we have that 'might' happen," Joe cautioned the group. "Even just telling you how long the list is probably won't be very helpful."

"I know the list of things that 'might' have happened to me so far is too long," Gomamon agreed unhappily as he continued to glare at his own new orange pendant.

This rather thoroughly killed any further discussion of the topic, and led to the group just quietly standing around to wait for the majority of them to return to normal. After a couple of minutes Shawn and Serperior arrived, reminding the group that the pair had also been caught in the effect.

"Sorry we're late, Delta 2," Serperior apologized. "We got caught up with how things are developing with the Upload situation."

"Namely Gazi is having to work out a way of punching into the new transport barrier that they've managed to somehow place over the entire digimon world," Shawn complained. "He can do it, and we are fairly sure that they weren't able to shut down the digital gates, but it still is a worrying development."

The Digidestined all reacted poorly to this news, the new kids looked confused and uncertain about the statement, Kari and T.K. were grim, their temporarily human partners were shocked, and the few in the know about Upload's true motives clearly noticed that the digital gate part of that explanation was likely deliberate.

"Is there-" Kari began to ask, before she was cut off by the majority of those present transforming back into their original shapes. The entire collection of humans and digimon, plus the snake twins, were all suddenly once more in just about the exact state they had been in before the transformation. "Alright, going from cat to human isn't much better than human to puppy."

"She's right about that," Gatomon agreed, flexing her claws. "I mean, I do not want to try humanity again, but that wasn't any less unpleasant."

"My fingers feel too long," Cody whispered with a frown as he flexed his own hands.

"I don't feel like I should be flying around anymore," Yolei noted with a bit of happiness.

"Not having legs again is the best part for me," Serperior added to the ongoing list of changes that everyone seemed eager to note.

"Right are we just listing things we don't have anymore? I could add 'multiple tails', but we kind of have more stuff to do," Gomamon dryly complained.

"Well, I'm a little disappointed I'm going to have to wait to become a Flamedramon again," Davis said to the seal digimon.

"Unfortunately we need to check that one, you still being able to do that despite being back to human is on the list of things that might have happened," Tyra cut in. "So, everyone over to the scanners please."

\---

Wormmon remained behind when Ken left to work on his technology more in order to get a better look at the digimon apparently willing to work for his partner despite everything. The various strong Champions that lacked Dark Rings all shuffled a bit now that their supposed master was gone, with the exception of Dark Tyranomon, who now shifted her gaze to the insect digimon.

"So, now that he's gone, we know who is actually giving us our orders, and making sure we get back okay," she rumbled quietly. "Just say the word, and we'll make sure he knows you're the boss." The dark implication of her tone was that Ken wouldn't necessarily survive such a lesson.

"Now listen here! The Emperor is my partner," Wormmon shouted angrily. "My concern is his safety above yours, so do yourself a favor and don't even bother with saying things like that around me." He was tired, and not in the mood for digimon as evil as Ken had become. "So if you really want me to make sure he lets you keep your minds you should just keep thoughts like that to yourself."

The Dark Tyranomon seemed to have fun reacting to them the wrong way, as she just laughed darkly at his declaration. "Ha, keep telling yourself that, Worm. I'll be waiting for when he finally goes too far and you need the muscle to take him down," she said still smiling.

Wormmon did not have the patience or time for this, so he simply turned to leave. He made sure to lock the doors of that chamber tightly, just in case.

\---

Yolei landed on the computer room floor on her feet, which she had once thought would make her happier than ending up on the floor entirely. Instead a part of her was sure she'd only managed it because she now had experienced being a digimon, particularly a four legged digimon that spent quite a bit of time needing to practice that skill. The others seemed to do just as well, although she was unhappy to see that Cody was now face to face with Armadillomon, both of them armored monsters. Her formerly human friend was the same species as his mother, while his partner/brother was once more in the shape that matched his name.

"I kind of hope that I don't turn from pokemon to human and back every time now," the Sandshrew noted finding his new pendant in his small bag. Just a moment after he put it on Cody's human form was once again alongside them, frowning heavily. "Um, this doesn't feel as human as I was just a couple minutes ago."

"Yeah, there's a reason Janice doesn't use that method to stay human," Shawn pointed out. "With those you can still feel most of your energy and understand pokemon. Maybe even pull off some heavily weakened attacks. That's why she uses the more fiddly medicine method, it turns her more into a human while she's taking it."

"I'm more concerned with how we don't seem to have been changed into our In-Training forms again," Hawkmon noted unhappily, and Yolei flinched at that before remembering that her family already knew what he looked like. "Not that I'm complaining about being in this form instead."

"There's nowhere to fly when you’re that size though," Yolei complained before she really thought about what she was complaining about.

"Well, there might be a couple of places," Biyomon said before she could become too embarrassed about the slip up, although the way they were apparently going to act like a human saying that wasn't a big deal still worried the new Digidestined girl. "But we'd need to work that out a bit."

"Well for now we need to get sent back to Delta 2 for a final checkup," Serperior pointed out before they could really react to their return to something resembling normal. Yolei then remembered Sora's speech from the day before, she looked at Cody uneasily checking his human form, Kari's clear nervousness even though so far she seemed to be the same as before they changed, T.K. and Patamon's uneasy silence, Davis and Veemon quietly discussing how they could try to both be both, and even her own comment on flying just a moment before. With a sigh she admitted to herself that normal probably wasn't going to come back.

\---

"It sounds as if your group is seeking absolution for your prior crimes," Azulongmon said casually as they finished explaining the overall plans they had for saving the digimon world and getting away with.

"You cannot have seriously just made that pun," Absol replied with disbelieving anger. "Really?"

"There was a pun in that statement?" the cloud dragon asked confused. "What part of that was a pun?"

Team Upload looked with equivalent confusion at the massive digimon. "Uh, Absol is an Absol," Bob noted, and then the group considered if the digimon had actually heard the pokemon's name. "That's actually a rather rude pun to use around them because of the history of the species."

"Given that it is the root word that led to our name, yes, it is a very rude pun," the white furred hybrid agreed, but looked less angry at the dragon. "Although I suppose I have lived up to our reputation more than most Absol. That reputation being that we are the cause of terrible disasters. Now, personally I mostly exploit disasters that have other causes, so you should be glad that right now my powers are focused on finding the disasters that will save this world."

"Although it is true that we wish to leave the villain life," the Architect said with his usual cheerful tone. "Being able to continue our research and development of Hackware in peace somewhere that doesn't bother anyone at all would be a wonderful future."

"I'd feel a lot better about that statement if you didn't sound like a super villain when you said it," Azulongmon complained.

"I have actually heard just that complaint my entire life," the Ultimate Hackware agreed happily. "It is gratifying to know that I still produce the proper response." Everyone present simply spent a moment staring at the demonic hybrid.

"You do that on purpose?" Alice asked darkly.

"Oh no, it's just how I speak, but the connotations fit my chosen career path so it isn't a major issue," her long time boss clarified.

"You are all doing a very bad job of looking anything like heroes that will help save my world," Azulongmon despaired. "Although I suppose that trying to ensure that the Digidestined have foes that are not out to destroy them could help them grow stronger faster."

"It's one of the better plans, and the one that holds up best without me giving constant disaster advice," the hybrid pokemon pointed out. "Which is important, because I've just about given myself brain damage from how much I've been using my disaster sense, and I will lose it if I don't cut back massively for the next few months."

"Absol can lose their disaster sense?" Bob asked thoughtfully.

"No, my brain. This whole thing was probably a bad idea," Absol clarified before passing out.

"There is a reason I made him into a Ghost, that greatly increases his chances of recovering from injuries," the Architect said, for once sounding genuinely upset. "Alice, please make sure he is alright. I still have some tasks to ensure that the new artificial Destiny Stones are fully active."

"Is he going to be alright?" the massive dragon asked with genuine concern. "I did not realize you were working that hard on this project."

"Neither did we," Alice harshly replied, checking her teammate. "Yeah, he's going to be fine. Exhausted and probably stuck with a migraine for a week or so, but he'll recover. Idiot just pushed himself too far."

\---

Ken looked over the various possible armor upgrades he could give to the dinosaur digimon, making sure to try and narrow it down to the more annoying sounding options. He heard the door open while looking at a set of bracing that should improve physical strength at the cost of being rather over-responsive until the wearer adapted to the augmentation.

"You shouldn't trust her," Wormmon said bluntly, his tone angry in a way that was now far too common. "Not any more than you have to, and I don't know how much we have to."

"Was she right?" Ken, not the Digimon Emperor for that, asked quietly. He turned to look at his advisor, and only trusted digimon.

The insect digimon looked like that question was somehow more of an attack on him than anything. "Right about what exactly?" he asked after a pause where he clearly considered the question.

"Would they be better at combat if they weren't as controlled," the Emperor clarified, finding a way to properly ask the question of the computerized creature.

Wormmon suddenly looked torn, and then sighed. "Yes, a major problem is that having them obey orders perfectly means that if they see something that would make those orders a bad idea, then they can't ignore or change them so they can actually complete the order," he admitted. "Orders that are more open would probably mostly work," he added sounding like he didn't really believe it would. "But I don't want you alone with that digimon. She is more than willing to attack you if she thought it would be best for her."

"We need her. She's one of my strongest remaining digimon, and the only one I can spare from the factory defenses," Ken admitted out loud. "I was about ready to move to being entirely defensive when she lost her Dark Ring earlier. Until I work out how to produce artificial digimon she's our only option." He then looked at the images in front of him. "Although I do intend to test just how willing she is to test out my other options," he added darkly.

\---

"Nice to be back to normal, isn't it Patamon?" T.K. said with relief after they managed to get home.

His partner shifted a touch uneasily. "I can feel it," Patamon said instead. "How I now need to protect you instead of just wanting it." He looked over to the restored human uncertainly. "I know, really know, that humans don't feel that, so I can now tell that it isn't just what everyone feels."

T.K. flinched at that information, well aware that his comments from the day before were the reason for it. "Well, is that a bad thing?" he asked. "My problem with it was that I already wanted to keep you safe, and it was making me obsess about it."

"Now I'm worried that it isn't something that's a part of me, but just what being a digimon does to me," his partner replied drooping. "You at least know that you really do want to protect me, while I'm not sure if I actually want that, or if I was just made to protect you." The digimon sighed and flapped over to the couch. "I couldn't even consider that before, but now I've been human. I can think about how I've felt about things this past week, and check how it’s different now that I'm back to being a digimon." Patamon looked at T.K. with a terrified expression. "What if the real me doesn't actually like you?"

"Well, given how many times we've already argued like brothers I'd say it can't be that bad about making you like me," T.K. attempted, then frowned as he considered the idea.

"What if we only went back to being friends because of it?" Patamon whispered unhappily.

"Do you want to try both of us being human, like Davis and his family are planning?" the Digidestined of Hope asked, not feeling very hopeful about this idea.

"No. Maybe both of us as Patamon if you're up for that, but I don't really like being human all that much," the digimon answered. "I think I'd rather deal with my mind being off because I'm shaped like this than spend all my time like that."


	82. 4-12 It's A Job

\--- It's A Job ---

"We've found the source of the last few corruption incidents of note," A-0 informed the Troubleshooter team. The DSS Troubleshooter Team had decided to have a summary of the past week’s events now that the Digidestined were mostly back to how they were before. "It looks like another group had let a digital world run wild after a virus made it into the system, and some bits were able to escape in order to infect other digital worlds. Support from League trainers that had already been eliminated has cleared it out, and Delta 2 was able to find a bit of time to check over the volunteers to make sure there were no missed cases of corruption exposure."

"Unfortunately, it looks like we aren't getting any more help to deal with the digimon problems out of that one," Quagsire added unhappily from where she was going over documents at one of the consoles. "There have been at least three other digital worlds that are possibly in that same state on record, and another half dozen possible threats going around at any given time, none of which are in the group that we're personally monitoring. If any of those volunteers do decide to get into the digital world protection business they're going to be grabbed by new groups made for those issues that don't already have teams like our own."

Shawn and Serperior sighed at this clarification. "We have six different Boxes where the contract holders are trying to push things to see what they can pull off using digital world differences," they said in tired unison. "Worst case is still Beta 40's, which is both still being used as a storage area, and also now having an attempt to get the pokemon inside to teach each other unusual moves using a mixture of TMs, HMs, and even some AMs."

"Alpha 45 is understandably upset with that misuse," Albert contributed with an uneasy ruffle of his mushroom cap. "Not quite as upset as she is about me still being stuck as a Breloom, or Delta 2 rushing some of her work for these 'Digidestined' kids, but still pretty mad."

"To be fair, it does look like I've been taking being a pokemon better than you are," Joe complained, although he was currently in human form. "Are you guys sure I should be here? This looks more like some sort of business meeting more than a place for me."

"Albert is more out of place than you are," Tyra bluntly informed her coworker. "He actually works for a different company, Alpha 45 just didn't want to send one of the RAS, while you have all the necessary prerequisites to be one of us. Including having been turned into a pokemon." She sighed heavily and moved back to the main topic. "Progress on figuring out how exactly Digidestined to digimon transformations, and vice versa, work is going well. We have a basic method worked out, and now the main issue is making that into a temporary one. No, Joe, we aren't at the point where we test it with you."

"Uh, don't you mean 'human to digimon'?" the temporary Breloom asked uneasily.

"Well, we know that humans from here are not what I'd call 'human' in so many ways. Enough that my use of this thing to become a pokemon is actually a much better test of what we're after than you trying it," the Digidestined of Reliability clarified holding up his pendant. "Although it does leave us with the problem of three different creatures called 'humans' that all look like each other on the outside."

"Giving energy to the Digidestined's humans reduces the number of differences considerably, and the rest we can account for easily enough," the patchwork digimon said to try and make that news sound better.

"On the subject of the Digidestined," Janice started on her own topics. "For starters we need to get Tai over here a bit earlier than everyone else. The local police want to speak with the leader of the group, mostly about what support and supplies they can provide, but also to cover what kinds of political and legal issues the group needs help with." She turned to look at Joe. "After that, or maybe while that is happening depending on timing, we have a planned trip into town to get supplies. It's going to be a little crowded with the first groups of people returning from the League, but any later and the shops will be low or out of stock of some products until the next one starts up again."

"Uh, there is going to be that many people here?" Joe asked uncertainly. "I would think they would be closer to the stadium."

"This is the closest town to the League," Shawn explained a bit awkwardly. "We haven't shown you guys a map yet? It's not down our road, you'd need to head through town and take a left at the main crossing to get there, but Grim's made a bit of a name as the last Gym to face before you reach the League. Having your eighth Badge be in the town right next to the place makes things easier for trainers so they plan for that. The biggest crowd went through to reach the League itself a bit before the whole species switch thing, but they'll be heading back over the next couple of days so all the shops are stocked up to try and make some end of League sales. I'd hate to miss out on something important and have to make a trip to Salient City in order to get it."

"The good news is that, since the last public matches were today, most people are just starting out on the trip back," Janice informed the Digidestined. "So the planned trip tomorrow should only have us hitting the smaller crowds that left before the final rounds."

"On the subject of crowds and towns, I have an idea to help with the issue of the refugee digimon not having much to do," Light-326 interjected, drawing the entire group's attention. "Janice's homeworld is used to dealing with monsters that act like they do, so we send small groups over to visit the town and use its services. Maybe even have some of them take odd jobs around the place for a short time so they have some local spending money."

The assembled group turned to Janice to see what she thought of the idea. "About a fifth of them are going to turn into pokemon from our analysis. You'd need to talk to my grandfather about that idea," she cautioned the digital life form. "It does sound like a way to at least get supplies for them to setup some longer term inhabitation in the digital worlds we have them in. With how Upload is acting we might need to deal with that issue for quite a bit longer than originally anticipated. Go ahead and contact him about this, but keep me informed."

\---

Taichi "Tai" Yagami sat at a conference table in the best clothes he owned, representing at least one entire world to another. Probably two all things considered, and as unpleasant at that seemed he had to consider it with the situation that he was now in. Agumon was uneasily sitting in an office chair next to him, and Tai really wasn't sure what to make of the fact that they had office chairs made so that small dinosaurs could comfortably sit in them.

Across from the two of them sat a pair of almost perfectly identical women in police uniforms, and a non-identical man in the same outfit named Henry standing behind them. The two women had both been introduced as Officer Jenny, and Tai had begun to realize they had no plan to let him know if that was their shared last name, or if this was some sort of digimon all look the same situation. Considering that one was notably older than the other he was fairly sure they weren't twins.

"So, Mr. Yagami, we've been informed by the DSS team assisting you that there are some complications with your relationship with your own government. Can you put the problem into your own words?" the slightly older looking Jenny asked.

Tai realized with a bit of disbelief that they thought he was an adult, then flinched at how that misconception was actually part of their question's answer. "Well, for one thing in my world I'm not actually an adult yet. That's one big issue with them thinking I'm actually in charge of people," he admitted, not wanting to mislead them. "After that the biggest problem is that I don't actually know what they think happened during the last incident with the digimon, or what they're doing to try and deal with things."

"That's not a good place to start," the police man said uneasily. "DSS hasn't reported anyone interacting with your digital world other than this self proclaimed 'emperor' and Team Upload. Do you have any idea if any governments have the capability to travel to your digital world?"

"Honestly, the plan we had with the last of the people who protected the digital world before us was to make it so we can't travel between them," Tai informed him. "We haven't had much contact with them since, and it’s only with this new issue that we've been able to reliably get back and forth ourselves."

"I'm guessing that those older protectors are related to how you were Chosen?" the younger Jenny asked sympathetically.

"The group that picked us yeah. We met the only survivor and he helped us defeat the bad guys last time," the Digidestined confirmed. "We haven't heard anything about him in a while, so we're basically on our own when it comes to the digital world right now. You guys actually being able to help is a big change."

"I'm going to be honest here, you've somehow got a worse issue than anything DSS has gotten us into so far," the older Jenny complained. "We will probably wait until we have a Champion available to try any attempts to make official contact with your governments. However, most of them are still busy fixing damage from the attack on the Flameheart Glacier last year. Until one is free to help the best we can do is provide supplies and emergency response teams."

"Which isn't the same thing as being able to give you the army it honestly sounds like you'd need more than just a few more fighters when things get extra tough," Henry admitted starting to pace. "Which is our big problem here, we don't really know how to help with an invasion of an entire world."

"The bare basics we can do is to get your entire group Trainer Cards and associated bank accounts to use in our world," the younger Jenny offered. "DSS has given us photos to make them from, and we're putting a good amount into the accounts for you to get supplies with." She passed a small plastic ID card over the table. "We aren't quite sure if the digi-mon needed to be given Trainer status, or marked as being on the monster teams, so for now we are starting with the second option and fixing any issues afterward."

Tai picked up the card and glanced over at Agumon to see his reaction, but the digimon seemed to be just trying to listen while sitting awkwardly. The card itself was an ID with what was actually a pretty good picture of Tai on it, which he wasn't sure was genuinely taken at any point he was aware of. There was a list of basic details about him that he did know Janice had asked all of them about during the medical checkups they had all gone through after his sister had been transformed. The back had some contact numbers and other details. Under his name the title Digidestined was printed rather officially, as if it was his job, and seeing that made the whole idea that it was more than just something the digimon called them suddenly feel real.

"Right. That sounds like it will work for now at least," he told them seriously, straightening as he did so. "We're planning on heading into town today in order to check out what exactly you have for sale to help out. What exactly can that 'emergency response' stuff be for?"

\---

Joe and his father both arrived in Box 201 early in the morning, having gone with Tai before the others were leaving in order to speak with Delta 2 about the pay for his new job. The two good sized bars of gold that she had set on the small table they were standing around was a strangely intimidating sight.

"I would think you would not be paying more than just the first week's so soon," his father uneasily noted as he picked up one of the two, then clearly frowned at how their now enhanced strength made telling how heavy it was a bit difficult.

"That is half his week’s pay there, about 150000 Pokédollars worth," the Chansey shaped Administrator replied a bit confused. "The other half has been put into a local account for him to use here."

Joe looked at the two blocks of metal, then thought about the prices listed on the vending machines he had seen in the building. "Uh, I'm guessing that gold isn't that rare here?" he nervously asked.

"Even if it isn't that still almost seems like too much," his father agreed, sounding unhappy with how he was making that argument. "If your gold is that much less valuable then I'm not sure it is the best thing to use in order to allow him to spend some of his earnings in our world."

"A very good point that is causing us no end of headaches," Delta 2 bluntly started her rebuttal. "However, after a lot of checking we have found that there is actually an extremely simple explanation for that little fact. In practice our money is worth more than yours."

TyranoGazimon walked over with her face buried in her scanner. "The most minor thing we've got is the difference between what our general supplies do for us and what yours do for you," she complained. "It was not fun to determine that in the right situation our spring water is a medical supply for us, while yours doesn't even come close. Which means those vending machines we have in the halls can be used for first aid in a pinch."

"That's overstating things," their boss said with clear annoyance. "But still, the energy content of our stuff is a major difference that is causing us some grief on the front of getting your world's money. Trade goods from our world have so far fallen into three categories. First there is the stuff like gold, which is really cheap for us but really hard to sell in your world without government contact. Then there's the stuff from our world that your world has, but works either better or differently in our world."

"We can't sell that stuff without figuring out how exactly those differences will impact anyone who uses them," Tyra clarified. "Food and such is the big issue there."

"Finally there is the largest category, stuff in our world that your world quite simply does not have," Delta 2 continued. "Which covers the vast majority of what we'd call valuable metals and gemstones, most of which are used in our more advanced technology in a variety of ways." She sighed heavily. "Along with a bunch of devices and such that your world can't seem to match. Quite frankly, far too much gold is probably the least valuable stuff we can use to pay you, and the thing that is least likely to cause you problems with re-selling in your world." She shook her head and held out a small ID card. "That said, we're not actually opposed to you trying that yourselves. If you want to spend your money on things for that purpose in town today, go right ahead. I'd just like to hear what you're trying first to head off any possible issues with side effects of whatever you try."

"I think we might avoid that," Joe's father said uneasy about the prospect of attempting anything that uncertain. "Would it be possible for Joe to buy basic supplies here in order for us to use at home?"

"Easily, although you'd have to explain the brands and differences in make somehow," Tyra agreed. "Have whoever takes you guys for the shopping trip point out what places sell what, make sure they know you're getting more than just Digidestined related stuff."

\---

Tai reviewed the notepad, one that he'd asked for midway through the meeting, after the local police officers had left. Some of it had information on a few differences between what they thought was normal and what he thought was normal, but the vast majority of the pages were covered with things the Digidestined needed to look into going forward. They would need to figure out what supplies that they would need, places to get those supplies, places to get the funding to pay those places for the supplies, people with the experience to properly use the supplies, and all of that was just for building and maintaining the digital worlds that they were currently keeping the refugees in. He was fairly sure DSS had a handle on that part for the moment, but in the long run, or worse if it happened again, then the Digidestined should be able to deal with that problem themselves.

He looked up at the sound of the door opening, and was glad to see that Agumon had found Izzy and Tentomon before they left for town. "Tai, did something go wrong?" the younger Digidestined asked uncertainly.

"Well, I'm starting to think that way back when I first met a Koromon something big did," Tai admitted. "Not you, Agumon, the other one. The one that let Gennai and his group find my sister."

"And the rest of us," Izzy added, uncomfortable with the dark way their leader was talking about someone that had helped them out a lot.

"I can't help but wonder if she's always had that 'light energy' stuff, and if they thought more of us could get it," the Digidestined of Courage noted unhappily. "If that is why they picked our bunch of kids."

"Ah, that's disturbingly possible, and the fact that we worked probably didn't help with that idea," his friend reluctantly agreed. "Although we do know that we weren't the first group."

"We need to work out what we're going to do to make sure things don't get this bad in the digital world again," Tai said to get to his main point, passing his notes over. "Which means that we'd need to keep an eye out for new issues ourselves."

"Things were going fine for a long time," Agumon started to argue. "Although, I guess they were really only fine until they just stopped being fine all of a sudden," he continued more thoughtfully.

"I have to admit, put like that I'd much rather know about when everything is going to go bad before we have to fix it," Tentomon agreed.

"Well, I guess I might be able to get the kind of analysis setup that Gazimon is using to look at these artificial digital worlds," Izzy nervously admitted. "The problem there is that I don't really have anywhere we can build that kind of thing. We would need to somehow get, I dunno, an office building or warehouse in town to use as a base."

"Well, I think we have the government of another universe willing to help with that part," Tai said bluntly. "I'm actually pretty sure that if we needed one they'd get us one here until we pulled that off just to get started."

"Didn't they mention going to look at some buildings on the other side of town?" his dinosaur partner/brother asked.

"They did, but I'm not sure if we are going to use one here," he said unhappily. "DSS has been able to help us out a lot so far, and if we are making a base I don't want to go to this world to use it."

"Yeah, the kind of setup I'm thinking of isn't exactly easy to move," Izzy agreed looking over the notes. "I'll make sure to see what kind of cost we're looking at for making our own. Probably talk with my parents about what it would take to get a place too. And I'll see what I can find available for sale today."

"Right, the shopping trip. Well, I guess we should wait on this stuff until after that's over," Tai said nodding. "Keep an eye out for that stuff, I'll see what everything else looks like."


	83. 4-13 Otherworldly Shopping Trip

\--- Otherworldly Shopping Trip ---

"Here we are, Shade Cross," Shawn said as they all entered the town. "The name made a lot more sense back when the forest was closer to the town, but lots of places have the issue of their original name not making as much sense as time goes on."

"It has had a Dark type Gym on and off for its entire existence, depending on if a Leader for that type was available," Serperior added as the group of Troubleshooters, Digidestined, digimon, parents, and siblings made their way to the market. "Right now David Grim is the Leader, and all things considered he's not that bad," the snake very reluctantly said. "He has offered to help with training you all in combat."

A few more simple facts followed, but Susumu Kamiya was more interested in looking at the world around them. He had already seen some rather large sparrow like birds, although it was mostly the brown color of the animals that made that connection. They were closer in size to crows, and had looked at the group with an intelligence that also seemed unusual for small birds. The buildings were in good condition, but he could still spot small patches of charred paint or large scratch marks that revealed a history of monster fights.

The market itself was soon visible, with a variety of simple stalls along the road between what was clearly a variety of specialty shops, and a single larger store with a bright blue roof. Susumu nudged his daughter as he spotted a black and red cat walking around with a kid. The cat had just spotted something on one of the stands, and rushed forward to stand in front of it.

The animal's owner quickly caught up, and then had what honestly looked like a fairly in depth conversation with the four legged animal about one of the items for sale. The father of two Digidestined somewhat regretted pointing out the incident given how intelligent the wordless argument of the cat was, mostly because he knew that if his own cat had tried it he probably would also be buying whatever that small box of treats was from the laughing saleswoman.

"Well, looks like someone knows how to do things," Gatomon commented slyly on the display. Susumu shook his head at his new daughter's reaction, and reflected for a moment on how much more easily he could see the digimon as that after spending a week with Kari being in that shape while Gato was a human. He had no illusions that either of them wouldn't be able to convince him to let them try special cat treats if they wanted them, and after thinking of that he made note of which stand they were looking at to see what exactly that stuff had been.

"Alright, so, Quagsire's team is going to be staying outside of the store," Shawn informed the group, indicating the large blue salamander monster. "If you have any questions or find anything you want to get, go ahead and ask them to help you. Meanwhile, I'm going to be taking us inside the Poke Mart family by family in order to go into more detail on what trainer supplies are like, and to try and get everyone stocked up for the coming battles."

\---

Mimi Tachikawa looked around the open air section of the market with a bit of trepidation. Palmon was standing next to her out in the open, and despite having been told that it would be fine, that simple fact made her nervous. The air was clean, the people looked happy, and she was supposedly safe, but Palmon was out among humans. Cautiously she walked over to a stand advertising beauty products of various kinds. She held her partner's arm tight to keep them from getting separated.

"Oh! Look Ann," a girl said walking over quickly, and Mimi was surprised to see a small green monster with blue and red roses for hands following her closely.

"Ah, I see it Amy! Your pokemon is so cute," another girl, apparently named Ann, said to her, with the far more surprising form of a massive venus flytrap monster next to her. "What are they?"

"Uh, I'm a Palmon," Mimi's partner replied uncertainly. "Nice to meet you?"

All four of them were clearly shocked by hearing the digimon talk. "You can talk? That's so cool!" Amy cheered. Her flower monster then gave a complicated series of sounds with excitement. "Ah, what did Roselia say?" she asked eagerly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't understand him," Palmon admitted uncomfortably, getting unhappy looks from the small group.

"Oh, that's so sad. So since you can talk to humans you can't talk to other pokemon?" Ann asked with her own monster giving a sympathetic sound. "Oh, sorry, I'm Ann and this is Carnivine," she then introduced herself and her partner to Mimi. "Did you travel here from another region to see the League?"

"Not really. We're from a bit farther away than that," Mimi admitted uneasily. "Palmon isn't actually a pokemon," she added not wanting to mislead the girls.

"Okay, that explains why she can't understand them I guess," Amy said, with Roselia squeaking in a way that sounded apologetic.

"If you aren't here for the League... Are you heading to Dendro Stop for the next big Contest?" Ann asked curiously, looking over at the stand they were all next to. "Palmon looks really pretty and you're outfit's cute too."

"Contest?" Mimi had to ask, confused by what looking pretty had to do with competing in this world. "I was just looking to see what kinds of things you sold in order to look nice."

"You haven't heard about Pokemon Contests?" both of the girls asked nearly simultaneously. Then the Digidestined and digimon found themselves getting an explanation of the concept from a pair of slightly overeager Coordinators.

\---

Mantarou Inoue wasn't sure that his family getting the first trip into the main general store was the right choice. The rest of their extended group was going to be just checking out the smaller stalls that dotted the area, and the way it was so well set up for those made it fairly clear that the rather small looking town was used to sudden big crowds. The "Poke Mart" was filled with display shelves, most of which only had a few of any specific item, and was clearly a general store with a focus on caring for monsters.

His father had made aborted attempts to ask why certain items had multiple variations several times already, likely stopping because the packaging very clearly displayed how so many of them were for creatures with hands shaped differently than human hands. Hawk had already looked at quite a few that fit with his own clawed wings with interest. Which had led to a confusing moment where the elder Inoue had just gave a blank look to Shawn as he translated the pros and cons of one of the items for another monster that was shopping with their own human.

"I really don't think these people use the word 'pet' the same way we do," his mother commented in a whisper holding up a small hand operated can opener that could not be used easily by a human. Just one of countless things that gave the impression this was a place where your pet dog might know how to get their own food.

"I'm more concerned with where they are keeping the stock to cover all of these variations," his father countered more loudly, drawing the attention of the shop's workers. "There doesn't seem to be enough room here to store too many of these things. How often do they run out of one kind or another?"

The closest clerk looked between the elder Inoue and Shawn for a moment with an expression of pure confused disbelief. "Um, you're here with someone from DSS," the nervous looking employee said uneasily. "How, how are you here with Shawn and asking that question?"

Shawn didn't look too understanding either. "We did say that the name was 'Digital Storage Solutions' right? And show you guys our storage tech?" he asked unhappily. "I was fairly sure someone had to have mentioned what our main business was. Most of their stock is stored as data and energy in our computer systems back at DSS. Typically you either take examples up to the counter to buy, or just talk with the employee behind the cash register to order what you want."

Mantarou felt his body freeze at the implications of that, and he could just see the moment when his father put 2 and 2 together to realize the advantage that offered. His siblings and mother also seemed to notice this with unease, except for Hawk who looked vaguely lost at what the question was. "How much can you keep in there?" he asked cautiously.

"Well, we're region wide," the employee answered awkwardly. "There is day to day storage set up for our individual locations, but when that runs low or we get a particularly large order we can draw from the region wide bulk system. Personally our store is close enough to DSS that we just have that smaller system over at their site, but most stores don't keep very much at all and just use a basic commercial system for their short term stock. Something to keep them going for a few days if the network breaks down."

"You can use these digital worlds to store things?" their father asked a bit greedily.

The clerk didn't look like he was going to say yes, but Shawn cut in first. "The normal systems actually just transform the items into energy, which doesn't need a digital world and sort of puts the products into stasis. However, your world's stuff isn't compatible with that process most of the time," he informed them a bit bluntly. "Which actually means you have thought of the option we could actually implement for you correctly. A digital world would allow you to at least store things inside of it, but no better than just putting them in a nice building made for storage. Also, if you wanted to have things retrieved and stored for you without going into the world yourself you would need to have digital creatures that moved the stuff for you."

"So, we could get something like that for the store?" his dad questioned with a thoughtful look at Yolei and Hawk.

Mantarou realized what that look had to mean, and internally sighed at what he needed to do. "Is that something I could learn to manage?" he asked trying to sound eager. He was rewarded with a grateful look from his new little brother, even if his youngest sister didn't seem to have caught on to what she almost had been tasked to do by their father.

"Probably," Shawn said, clearly catching what he was doing. "We should have time to go over that in more detail in the future, so let's get back on track for now."

\---

"Well, now I think I can say I've been to too many different marketplaces," Joe commented as he looked around. "I can already tell that pokemon worlds are more like each other than our worlds." His father was currently inspecting the products in a nearby grocery store with the help of the blue bug monster, Grant.

"With all the time you've spent as one this week I'm not sure that this world doesn't count you for too," Gomamon complained, although he was still scanning the stalls from his position hanging off his partner's shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, you're worried," Joe replied as he moved closer to a medicinal herb seller to see what exactly the older man had available. "It's just the job Goma, nothing to be worried about."

"Uh huh, right Joe. You've just spent the last four days getting into fights you wouldn't let me go into if you were thinking straight," the seal digimon countered. "Hey, isn't that the 'revival' one Delta 2 mentioned?" he then asked pointing to a particularly gnarled specimen.

"Yes indeed, that's a very effective root for restarting your defensive energies after they have collapsed from battle," the old man agreed, unconcerned with a talking monster asking the question. "A bit more bitter than the refined crystals you can occasionally find in stores, but much easier to find, and cheaper too."

"How much is cheap?" Joe asked cautiously, and the prior conversation was as a result fully interrupted by a discussion over the merits of various simple remedies. One that the Digidestined reflected was basically the same as one he'd ended up having with the Floramon running a berry shop in Cody's ancestral world.

\---

Hiroaki Ishida sighed as his older son, or perhaps sons, looked around the store at piles of items specifically made to help humans assist their battle monsters. He knew that it had not been done on purpose, but the way that his best option to actually help went away in an instant was discouraging.

There were a couple of other people and monsters in the room, and the reporter found his eyes meeting the gaze of a metal coated sort-of-bird. Unhappy and stressed he kept his eyes locked with the monster's, focusing on his mood to help not blink.

The biggest issue for him was that there was no easy way he could support the kids. Supplies and other goods were now being covered by this other world, and they had already managed to get access to a base of sorts to work out of in the form of the strange lab that 'DSS' used for just this job. He was basically useless for anything more than a person to talk to, and what did he know about having to help a monster fight other monsters, or surviving in alien worlds.

The bird monster's eyes seemed to reflect that same sentiment back to him, and he vaguely wondered what the creature was thinking. It clearly either agreed that this was an impromptu staring contest, or alternatively could not actually blink. He hoped vaguely that it wasn't the second case, but attempting anyway was helping to distract him from his train of thought.

The man shopping next to him then noticed what they were doing. "Skarmory, please don't bother the other customers," he said with a sympathetic tone. Hiroaki didn't break eye contact at this, but he did understand the slight look of disappointment that appeared in his opponent's eyes, just before the bird clearly deliberately blinked to concede the challenge.

"He was fine," he replied, blinking himself. "I needed a distraction. Things aren't quite going where I expected them to go."

"Well, I guess it is alright then. I'm Rodger, of the local Pokemon Rangers," the man introduced himself. "Skarmory here is in a bit of a sour mood himself. Actually that's the main reason we're in town." Rodger seemed reluctant to say even that much, but still continued. "In our last encounter with a bigger threat he got hurt pretty badly, and it wasn't the first time. We've been told that it isn't safe for him to battle at all anymore."

"He thought he'd still be able to help, but now he's found out he can't anymore," Hiroaki guessed, feeling an odd sense of fate about this meeting. This earned a sympathetically agreeing chirp from the bird monster, Skarmory, who then proceeded to flap over to land on his shoulder. The bird was somewhat heavy, which after a moment of thought he realized was something he had not felt anything reach in the time since his first visit to this world.

Rodger sighed expressively at this. "We're looking for someone to take care of him now," the Ranger said in the tone of someone who had just lost an argument. "He's been fairly insistent about testing people to see if they would work out."

"I'm not sure that I know enough about how to do that," the Digidestineds' father admitted. "Although, I can understand that sentiment. With any luck I'm not going to be near any serious battles again."

"Uh huh, yeah. A guy perfectly suited shows up while I'm in town, who says that line like that?" the Ranger said, strangely enough refocusing the oddity of their meeting as if Hiroaki's presence was the serendipitous part. "I'm not saying 'no', mostly because I don't think I'm getting Skarmory off your shoulder anytime soon, but I'm going to need the full story for this one."

"How exactly is he crippled?" Shawn suddenly said from behind them, surprising all of them.

"Yikes, oh, Shawn. Some physical issues with his wing muscles, but mostly an energy injury," Rodger said, clearly recognizing the Troubleshooter. "I was actually coming here to see you guys, apparently you have a pretty good medical facility on hand? I've already been told that in the best case he's going to be out of action for an entire year, and I can't keep an eye on him that long, let alone getting him back into shape after that kind of break."

Shawn didn't look confident about the diagnosis. "Delta 2 might be able to help, especially if Skarmory ends up working with Mr. Ishida's situation as well. That would open some options that we would otherwise be reluctant to go with," the trainer allowed. "But I wouldn't get your hopes up if the energy situation was bad enough that they told you about it."

The bird monster leaned down to once again challenge Hiroaki with a look, this time clearly asking if he was willing. "Well, I guess I know what I'm doing when we're done shopping," he agreed, wondering what exactly he was getting himself into in order to just have something productive to do.

\---

Mimi had found herself smiling widely as they spoke on a bench at the edge of the market. "Really the worst part of being in the desert was getting the sand out of my clothes afterward, well, at least the worst part of the desert part of it," she informed the girls and plants.

"Yeah, I know right? You have to spend so much time on them, and you still end up picking grains out for weeks afterward," Amy agreed easily.

"It's also far too hot there," Palmon agreed. "I like a bit of sun, but that was so much I was drooping." Carnivine and Roselia both vocally agreed with that statement.

"I dunno. Traveling by the ocean is worse in my book," Ann said. "You still have sand and sun, but there's also salt water, which just ruins clothes, and giant sea monsters."

"Ann, just because you made a Cloyster mad by accident doesn't mean the ocean is terrible," Amy countered, and Mimi had to shake her head at how normal she made it sound. How normal they both seemed, even though for the first time ever she was getting the chance to talk about what happened to her without either being looked down on for how she had reacted, or looking crazy for talking about monsters. To them what had happened to her was just normal, having a plant monster was fine, and knowing how to fight despite not wanting to was perfectly okay.

\---

Izzy was concerned. The dedicated electronics store he was currently investigating was a wealth of knowledge about the pokemon world, and also a harsh reality of how differently they thought. For one thing they didn't have anywhere near as many phone models or other advanced internet connected devices.

"Well, what exactly would you connect to?" the saleswoman asked after he inquired about that. "There is the regional communication networks, but all of that is talking to someone specific. I mean, if you want to connect to a specific system you probably use a dedicated device. Or are you asking where our assembly kits are?"

'Assembly kits' turned out to mean that hobbyist electronics was a common product for the store, and that actually seemed more advanced than what he had previously had access to. Given one of the kits was explicitly to "build your own personal storage terminal", he was quite sure that they were more than advanced enough to make the things he was used to seeing.

When it came to sensor systems the available selection was mind boggling. He could barely believe that some of the ones he recognized were available for normal people to just buy, and at prices that felt far too low. There was everything from weather monitors he could have found back home, to material analysis systems that he wouldn't find anywhere but a dedicated lab. Which did not even cover the sensors for energies and phenomena that didn't exist back in the purely human world.

Izzy honestly had to stop himself from attempting to buy out their entire stock, and the main thing holding him back at this point was the fresh knowledge that he had nowhere to put all of it.

"Uh, sir, maybe you'd prefer to check out our catalog section?" the saleswoman suddenly interrupted his mumbling consideration. "You seem to be making big plans, and we're not really stocked for setting up a lab right now. That generally happens in the off season, and we are in the last stretch of trainer gear sales right now."

\---

Tents made to go from desert winds to monsoon rains or harsh blizzards overnight, food storage that could hold months of supplies, portable cookware that effectively created outdoor kitchens that could fit into a carry bag, and hundreds of different small travel goods that made life on the road more comfortable. When T.K. had first seen Shawn's campsite he had been too caught up in being jealous about it to consider the wider implications. Now, seeing that just about every product in the largest store in town was dedicated to that kind of setup, it fully hit him that this world was just like the digital world when it came to travel.

"Do you think we should be ready to get stranded again?" Patamon asked looking specifically at the tents. "I think these get small enough that we could each carry one." T.K.'s partner/brother shifted in the awkward way that had started after they turned back, and that he was fairly sure meant he was thinking about being human again. "It wouldn't be that much heavier would it?"

"I think part of that issue is that these humans are stronger than what we're used to," the Digidestined of Hope admitted. "Sure the bags seem to make things less heavy, but they also seem to be able to just pick up monsters."

"You're worried about your- our dad?" Patamon asked, clearly talking about the metal bird that had been on their father's shoulder when Matt was done in the store.

"Well, not really worried. I just don't know what to think about it," T.K. sighed. "Part of me is thinking that he'd be safer in case they attack my world again."

"But it's still some monster we don't know," Patamon agreed. "Are we going to be able to help figure that out?"

"We might need to trust Matt and Gabumon to handle that one, Patamon," he admitted, then blinked. "We're brothers with Gabumon too, aren't we?"

"Yeah," the digimon replied slowly as he tested out that idea too. "That's almost as weird as dad having a monster too."

\---

Davis was still a bit unsure about being human again. The biggest issue was that now that he could compare it to his other two forms he could tell that his intelligence was somewhere between the two right now, smarter than as a Veemon, but not as smart as a Flamedramon. Despite this, he was willing to wait for Shawn's group to figure out how both him and Davey could switch between them, and hopeful that they could find another way for them to evolve.

"Huh, what are these?" he asked aloud looking at a display of disks and small boxes. The featured disks had images of pokemon firing off attacks that didn't quite fit what they looked like, while the three boxes had a more prominent display showcasing monsters with highlighted alterations using other moves. He noted that one of the boxes was showing a pokemon melting the way he'd seen Serperior move a couple of times. The other two were for a slashing attack that apparently gave the user metal on their claws, and a strange one that had a few images of a monster growing root-like things into the ground.

"It looks like the first run of Alpha 45's Adaptation Machines," Shawn said looking over the boxed items. "A special kind of TM- and we haven't really explained Technical Machines to you guys, have we?"

"I don't think so?" Davey more asked than said, and Davis wasn't sure himself if they had and he just forgot about it.

"They are little devices that teach pokemon how to use a move that they don't typically learn themselves," Serperior said while looking directly at the melt-move box. "There is a compatibility requirement for them, but the main use is a quick way to get a bit of variety in what you can do. Adaptation Machines let you use some more unusual moves, with the side effect of permanent changes." The snake pokemon briefly turning into a flowing mass, attracting attention from the other customers.

"We might have Alpha 45 go over that a bit more with you," Shawn continued. "We should be able to get a wider variety from her, along with some other options. No need to impact the limited stock this place has." Davis dubiously looked over at the trainers moving closer now that they'd discussed it, as they seemed to him to be a lot more interested in the things now. "Impact it anymore than we already have."

\---

"So, Mimi, how do Contests sound?" Ann asked after their rather meandering conversation finished covering just about every aspect of the practice. The Digidestined of Sincerity had to consider that question, and she was glad that the other two girls didn't seem too upset with how she had to think before she answered.

The simple part was the contests themselves. 'Coordinators' would have their monster partners put on displays set up to match a certain theme, like being cute or beautiful. These displays would be unique and well developed methods of using the monster's abilities, typically able to be used in a fight too, but local ones didn't actually have the monsters battle each other. The Coordinator would also dress up themselves and their partner in an appropriate outfit, to maximize the effect of the performance. It sounded like the perfect way for her to show Palmon what she enjoyed while also being something that would appeal to the digimon.

The fact that very few Coordinators had only one partner was something Mimi felt she should have expected after seeing the battle tournament, but it still was a bit of a surprise. Amy and Ann both had other monsters too, ones that were better suited to different themes in their case, but some Coordinators apparently just focused on one theme with multiple ways of showing it off. She didn't know how she would handle having other partners, but she wanted to wait to discuss the topic with Palmon until they were alone.

The travel aspect of the whole thing was, with the added context of the stories they had shared, a strangely familiar idea. The thought of having that same kind of trip, only with a contest instead of a conflict at the end, was actually really temping to her. Another way to have more of the good parts of that time with less of the bad.

"They sound great," she finally replied, not succeeding to keep a hint of sadness out of her voice.

"If they're great then what's wrong?" Amy asked sounding a bit hurt.

"It sounds wonderful," Mimi tried to reassure the other girl. "I really wish I could do it." The clarification seemed to get across her meaning, but it didn't improve the mood.

"Well why can't you?" Ann asked with some concern, Carnivine looping his roots around the girl to climb up in order to see better. "You're more than welcome to come with us to Dendro Stop."

"We have, we have to protect my world," Palmon nervously admitted.

"We were Chosen to do it," Mimi added unhappily.

"You're Chosen Ones?" the two girls asked, only they did so in a sympathetic tone instead of sounding impressed.

"That's terrible! Didn't you say you don't even like fighting?" Amy asked actually sounding horrified.

Which made Mimi laugh at how nice they were. "I don't," she agreed, wiping away tears. "It's horrible to have to fight, but there isn't anyone else to do it."

"You're here to get help," Ann said seriously. "That's why you're in town after the League, to find strong trainers."

"To get supplies actually," Tai suddenly said from nearby. "We honestly already have a lot of help." Mimi met his eyes. "We should at least be able to handle things without you for a little while."

"What? But, what about-" she started to ask.

"Don't worry Mimi. I can handle your parents, and the others can keep our worlds safe," he answered before she could finish. "We should take time now to do things we enjoy, before..." He didn't need to finish. Things would get even worse before they got better, they always did.

"Alright!" Amy agreed. "Come'on, Mimi! We need to get you ready for an entry level contest." The Digidestined of Sincerity allowed herself to be pulled back to the stand that started this whole event, while Ann chuckled lightly.

\---

Beak care chew toys, preening aid kits for at least three different feather materials, talon sharpening guides that almost looked like they were written by a bird. Sora was not sure at all what she expected to find available in this place, but it defiantly did not go far enough.

"They have things specifically to help with fire breathing birds," Biyomon said a bit faintly holding up a box. "I don't know if we even have stuff like this back in the digital world." The bird digimon shook her head uncertainly.

"What does it do exactly?" Sora asked her sister, and suppressed a flinch at how a part of the reason she asked was consideration of how it would have worked on herself as a digimon.

"Well, there are a couple here," the digimon said as she looked closer. "This one says it makes the flames more damaging, and this other one says it makes it more likely to 'cause a painful burn'." She set down the first box and continued searching. "Here's one that does both, and I think this one over here is supposed to make the flames not catch stuff on fire as much."

The Digidestined of Love blinked at that variety. "That's, quite the selection," she replied. "I guess I can understand why all of them are useful."

"Actually, some of these aren't really worth the cost," Serperior noted. "That last one's a good value, but the increased burn chances from the two that offer that aren't actually that noticeable in most cases. We ran into issues with those in a Box, and I had to actually research the end effects of each of these to calm a group of pokemon down." The snake monster then looked more closely at the specific products. "Oh, wait this one's the good brand," he noted pointing at the second package. "The effect is more short lived, only works for a day or so, but it actually gives a nice increase in the chance."

"Is that something you can use for the tournament?" Sora asked curiously. "In our world sports don't let you use drugs to improve your performance."

"Training pokemon isn't a sport," the pokemon bluntly replied. "The League is a test to see how strong of a team you can manage, and if you're able to keep your team stocked with this stuff that's perfectly fine. Generally any job you get from your performance in the Tournament would accept this kind of thing as a working expense. The only issue would be things that have side effects, which you would be expected to only use when absolutely needed. That's part of the reason it takes an entire week for all of the matches, so that the short lived but useful stuff needs to be kept up, and for things that don't handle that well you will typically see the trainer fail by the end of things. Usually rather spectacularly."

\---

"Well, I'm sorry to say that whoever told you he was 'crippled' was perhaps understating things," Delta 2 unhappily declared to the small group that had taken a detour to her Box before returning home for the day. Skarmory looked particularly upset with that declaration, although Rodger wasn't too far off. "The 'good' news is that in theory I can 'fix' the problem to get things so it is safe for you to battle again."

"The bad news is that the fix involves some fairly serious long term medical procedures, and 'out of action for a year' is the low end of recovery," TyranoGazimon added with a sigh. "Two months where any real fight risks making the injury worse, followed by at least 6 of it 'only' putting him back to square one, and then at least another 6 to finish the treatment."

"Add another 2 months in order to make sure that there are no significant side effects, and only then can he start in on retraining. That's the low end estimate if nothing goes wrong," the Porygon-2 Administrator continued.

"Dad," Matt started, shaking his head. "I'm not sure we can actually promise he'd be safe that long. If our enemies do spot him, then they aren't about to not attack just because he isn't starting the fight himself."

"Only if enemies you have spot him?" Rodger asked. "Because, and I have to be honest here, I don't know of many people that would be able to keep a well trained pokemon away from any other mons that want a fight that easily."

"We don't exactly have monsters in our world normally," Hiroaki Ishida noted calmly. "That's my concern, he is going to be stuck somewhere without any other monsters around."

"Do I get a say in this?" Skarmory asked, and visibly stilled at the dual sound of his voice being translated.

"The translation is there for that reason," Delta 2 said with a smirk. "I want your thoughts on this too, it's a serious medical condition here."

"Alright," the metal bird slowly said, clearly in an attempt to test the translation. "It sounds like this is actually an entire different world. One where I would not even have the temptation to fight, unless things get so serious that making things worse for myself is a good trade to save others. To me that is worth it."


	84. 4-14 Gameplay Advice

\--- Gameplay Advice ---

Arukenimon silently raged as they stood in a dark alleyway. She could not freely travel to the digital world anymore, the path to that world had suddenly and inexplicably became barred to her and Mummymon.

"What could have possibly done this?" her partner asked, entirely on task for once due to the serious nature of the issue. "Nothing from the digital world should have been able to do something this powerful, right?"

"Nothing there is this complex," she corrected him darkly, and started walking towards the backup option. "It isn't just a strong barrier, it is a smart system too. Asking for authorization, and tracking anyone who tries to get in."

"'Tracking'? You mean someone is looking for us now?" he asked in a rush and braced for combat.

"No, I've disrupted those scans. However, we can't just try and brute force this without them knowing exactly where in the digital world we would land," she clarified unhappily. "So, our best bet is to start off with the one place where we know we have guaranteed allies in that world. One that has another method of getting there entirely."

\---

More than anything else Ken was tired. He was at home, having missed another event for his soccer team, one that didn't seem anywhere near as important with his efforts in the other world having all turned out to be wasted time. His parents might have been a little concerned, but they had not brought it up yet. Probably because the practice before had still just been him dominating everyone else, and how he had called out his team on how badly they did without him, making it sound like he was testing them by not going to the match.

A knock on their door interrupted any more consideration, and also disrupted the break the boy genius was taking from his game gone wrong. His father opened it to reveal a FAMILIAR woman and man, the former in a red outfit and the latter in blue, both rather complexly dressed.

"Hello," the woman said cheerfully. "We're here to talk to Ken about the game he's playtesting for us." Ken's head swam for a moment before he REMEMBERED what she meant. "We've recently discovered that some hackers have interfered with his work, and decided he might need a bit of direct intervention to help get things back on track."

"Oh! That's why he's been so caught up with it?" his mother asked kindly. "We had thought that it was only him playing a game on his own, not that he was helping people make the game."

"It's no wonder he's been so distracted," his father agreed looking at him with pride. "Having something complicate helping someone else does need a bit more concentration. We should have known it was important."

The woman in red was smirking oddly, and Ken WASN'T curious as to why.

\---

Shawn slashed through another Dark Ring, and needed a bit more effort than before to get his Leaf Blade to cut through the metal band. Nearby Serperior helped his own targets prepare for evacuation from the digimon world for the time being through the tear in reality they arrived through. "Is this one going to work Gazi?" the trainer asked his digimon teammate.

The rabbit monster had at least five black panes open around the Control Spire, and the odd purple barrier he had made around the small clearing was occasionally pulsing with power. "As much as I'm willing to risk with this idea," Gazimon said tiredly. "I can outright confirm at this point that the 'Emperor' kid is just a pawn. The way he suddenly started using more features of these things looks less like genuine discovery, and more like how Dark Network access worked back when my generation was attempting to train others in how to work it."

"What exactly was that like?" Serperior asked idly. "I mean, from how you've described it you weren't exactly the best person to be teaching about that back then."

"That's the nice way to put it," Gazimon grumbled, and then flexed his hands to shuffle the panes around. "Well, first off you have to understand we started with In-Training digimon, with the idea being that they'd know what they were doing when they evolved to Rookie. Which was a bad plan to start with, they were hard to keep on task, and ironically despite me being terrible at actually teaching the job I was a lot better at getting those kids to actually learn something." The digimon paused with a distant look. "I was proud of the survival rate for my kids from that. At least while it looked like some of them would outlast me."

His teammates, and even the digimon with them, all cringed at the implication of the old digimon's statement. "None of them made it?" one of the locals asked horrified.

"Heh, well, there was a Budmon," the rabbit monster said with nostalgic humor. "She was the biggest idiot I got assigned. Got the material so fast that honestly I wasn't the one teaching her, but cause of that she didn't really listen to a word I said. Heard them all sure, but I doubt she actually understood any of the important parts. Too caught up in how to get good at the job to tell I wanted her to know how to survive it instead. She evolved into a Dokunemon, and then ran off with another Gazimon when she finally figured out what I was saying about Etemon's thoughts on being competent. Namely that if you were too good at something, you were a threat to him."

"Doesn't sound like a total idiot to me," Shawn noted, not actually disagreeing with his digimon.

"They made it to Champion, Dokugumon for her and he was a Devidramon, and then they did the stupidest thing they could have," Gazimon replied, then shook his head and closed his panes. "They signed up to work for Myotismon, which is the only reason I even know what happened to them. Ran his connection to the Dark Network for him, but I doubt they survived that, bastard always ate his minions when he was done with them." He sighed and shook his head. "I'm done here, let's get out before my sensor block wears out." With a strong stab of his claws the tower cracked and shattered into a pile of broken stones.

\---

Arukenimon glared at the control room they had arrived in after her bit of effort to properly convince the pawn and his parents. The small bug monster in the room had already glared back at her, but then went back to the map display quietly, as if she wasn't more important that what it showed him. Although the map that was far, far worse than she had anticipated, absolutely covered in enemy territory. Mummymon was looking at the display with clear shock on his human form, and the way that the no doubt still light aligned bug was in the middle of ordering more attacks on unclaimed areas was just as unnerving as how casually he dismissed her.

"What exactly have they hacked?" the 'Emperor' asked now that they were out of his house, and sounding more confident no doubt due to his change in attire and location. "I have been thinking it was just the main enemy finally showing up, and that I had not prepared properly."

The human/spider hybrid considered her options here. They had now confirmed that the boy's travel method still worked for the two of them, but if it was an option for their leader then he would surely have already tried it, so that only meant the two of them still had access. Highly conditional access, as now instead of an easily sacrificed pawn the boy was their only path to and from the digital world securely. Which meant that she needed to make sure that he stayed their minion.

"These hackers have taken over the usual enemy and replaced them with their own forces. We need to figure out how they did that, and also destroy a number of objects that they are using to perform their hacking attempts," she said grandly. "To help with that the two of us are going to act as, advisors to you. Providing some extra combat power and technical capabilities." Hopefully that would let the Dark Spore manage his thoughts properly to keep him in line.

The boy considered that thoughtfully for a moment, apparently content to let his minion continue the conflict unsupervised. "My biggest difficulty right now is with my attempt to get artificial digimon production online. The Control Spire factories should work for that purpose, but I can't seem to find the right method," he said seriously. "With those I could more easily pressure the crystal forces these hackers are using, so my elite forces could work with less risk."

That was not what she had expected, the Spore must have been truly desperate to even allow the boy a hint of that possibility, and that alone made it clear that using those powers was needed now. "I am more than able to get that capacity started for you," she informed him looking at the map with new unease.

"Perhaps you can give an overview of what exactly you have been dealing with so far?" Mummymon questioned, having finally gotten his reactions under control. She had not really been impressed with his actions since he helped to lure the boy to the Dark Ocean, as if being in that dark place had somehow altered him as well.

"If we can make them Champion strength we might even be able to retake some space," Wormmon bluntly said, once more glaring at the two of them. "They have plenty of those." The displays changed to three different red polygonal creatures. Digital monsters so primitive that their physical forms lacked all but the most basic detail. From appearance alone they should not have been enough of a problem to merit this level of response.

"It doesn't matter how dumb he looks," a memory said to Arukenimon upon thinking that about these abominations. "He's more than strong enough to make you nothing but a pain filled memory." She could not even place when such a thing could have been said to her, let alone who said it or why.

"Arukenimon?" Mummymon whispered with some worry, and she realized she had become distracted.

"I think I need a more practical demonstration than just images. Where is a weak link in their lines?" she asked harshly to get away from the strange thoughts.

\---

Ken felt, strange. He felt strange and every time he came too close to thinking about that he STOPPED. Nevertheless, he needed the developers' help with his issues, especially if this was actually the game being exploited in a way that even they couldn't easily fix. He'd just have to make sure that the strange feeling was something he could avoid, or perhaps have the digimon take over anything that seemed to cause it. Their AI was clearly advanced enough to handle more tasks than he had expected on their own, and if there was some sort of interface issue from the hacker's efforts it might be avoided by going around direct interaction.

Wormmon had even cautioned him about going out with the pair by himself, and the fact that they didn't want his Elite Team with them made him a bit uneasy. "From what little I've been able to figure out most of the structures they make are energy generation systems. Fragile ones, but not immediately dangerous, unlike the taller sensor array systems, or the bulb shaped structures that grow small items that restore the energy of their forces," he listed as they approached the target area. "I've had my teams recover some of the pods from those last ones for analysis, but typically I'm trying to take those out quickly. Otherwise they can simply outlast my forces too easily."

The only response he got was an uneasy look on the woman's face, which probably meant that wasn't intended behavior for the enemy forces. "I see," she said as soon as the first hints of the crystal landscape were visible. "It appears fairly empty for now."

"The central areas have teleportation pads set into the ground, near the recharging blocks," he cautioned. "I have not managed to get close enough to intact versions of those to know the details of their operation."

"Aru?" the man asked, sounding almost like he cut himself off from saying a different name.

"We wait until we can actually see some danger, Mumm," Aru said, the name she gave her partner sounded a bit harsh.

That took far longer than Ken expected, with the crystal coated landscape going by quickly as the neared the center of this area. Where the three of them found a pair of humans looking at a large stone with a band of crystal around it floating in the air, with strange symbols etched into the band. "Alice, company," the man said, turning towards them revealing his eyes were a red color matching the crystals.

"We're fine, Bob, they weren't exactly subtle," the woman said, and suddenly there was an entire army around them. All three of the largest monsters were present among the mass, although it was mostly the serpent shaped ones. "I'm more interested in why they are here all alone."

"Mumm, make sure that stone doesn't survive," Aru darkly said. "I'll show these ants what power actually looks like." Then her body shifted, growing larger and inhuman into the form of a massive spider-like digimon with a human torso in place of its head. Mumm's body also changed, revealing a tall mummy with massive claws, and Ken was now FAIRLY sure that the two were actually using the names of these digimon forms for A REASON.

"Ultimates," Alice said darkly, and then changed as well to become one of the human-like crystal monsters he had seen. She was one of the floating pillar like ones, and indeed she lifted off the ground easily.

"Let's see how you stack up," Bob said in an eerily similar tone, now one of the four legged combat monsters. Ken found himself a bit uneasy at how the human's legs had split, as at least Aru had grown massively in size as well instead of so blatantly losing a human shape.

Mumm responded by firing the massive weapon that had appeared as he changed at the stone. With a subtle motion Alice forged one of the damn red barriers they used to block attacks, and while the short barrage did destroy the construct it didn't go past it. "Wh-What? How did she do that?" the mummy asked, and Ken felt a hint of fear creep into him.

"Don't just stand there staring at it," Aru said slashing at the far too many monsters around them. "Keep firing!" She was doing far better than any digimon he had sent before, but the army around them was retreating too quickly. Some of the slabs of crystal weren't even being hit by the air from her attacks before they vanished in flashes of red light.

Mumm, which probably was short for 'mummy' given his appearance, did just that, and while two more barriers and an intercepting attack from 'Bob' did stop quite a few seconds of the sustained rapid barrage the rest struck true and dug into the stone and its crystal ring. After taking a long barrage the entire construct shattered into shards of red material, revealing that even the stone was made of the same material as the rest of them. Alice and Bob both looked upset, but not truly angry, about its destruction. With a massive crashing sound and a blinding red flash all of the crystal monsters and structures vanished from the battlefield as if they were never there.

Aru and Mumm didn't look happy at all about that result, but Ken had bigger concerns. "This turning into a digimon ability both you and they have, is that some higher level skill I haven't unlocked yet?" he asked, trying to keep his voice calm and cool while focusing on the least intimidating part of the whole event. Both of the developers changed back into humans before either replied.

"It is, although I will have to look into getting it for you early," Aru said thoughtfully, apparently also grabbing the topic to distract from the implications of the battle.

\---

"What, in the world, was that!" Arukenimon raged after they had returned to the human world and left Ken's home. "It looked like one of the Destiny Stones, and was acting like one, but there is no way that was one of them."

"You don't think they are making more do you?" Mummymon asked uneasily as he checked to make sure no humans were close enough to their alleyway to hear her.

"That's the problem, I do think they are, and that is impossible," the spider monster ground out. "Just like the strength of those monsters and those barriers. All of that is highly advanced manipulation of the digital world that nobody I know should be able to do." She sighed heavily. "And all of them teleported away before I could destroy any of them, which is another thing that is far too much power for some upstarts to have. These are a real enemy."

\---

"We are fucked," Alice said bluntly as the group settled down from the mass evacuation teleport.

"No we're doing fine," Absol said in a grumpy tone. "Still no doomsday on the horizon."

"Even with a pair of Ultimates after us now?" Bob complained as he continued checking the Hackware's damage from the fight. While they had not lost any of the digital life forms, many were close to destroyed from even glancing blows by the spider woman.

"Right well, Anderson has disconnected my future sense for a bit," the canine complained, deliberately using their leader's old name to show his level of annoyance. "But if it is still enemies at his level then it should not be bad enough to derail my main plan yet. We can both overwhelm them in the short term, and two isn't enough to match our rate of expansion in the long term."

"We need to keep the pressure up then," Alice sighed, and turned to their own digimon teammate. "HackBiyomon, is your new pet project going well?"

The pink and red bird monster huffed. "If you can spare the time to help me, yes," the copy sighed, looking over at the Hackware material sensor arrays along the cliff face by the train tracks that ran through this captured area. "We have everything we need to finish getting them ready for production now."

\---

"Boss man, who were they?" Dark Tyranomon asked the Emperor after he returned from taking his new 'advisors' back to the other world. The sudden appearance of two digimon that he was now acting like could boss him around was not what she had expected when she signed up.

"You, don't know?" the human asked, confused and with a somewhat familiar look on his face.

"You look like my brother before the old boss sent us out to fight," she quietly rumbled with unease, then shook her head as he only looked more confused. "No, the only digimon I ever met who were anything like those two were tech spider and her muscle, and if my brother didn't survive the other world I seriously doubt they did."

"Just because they can become digimon doesn't mean they are digimon," the Emperor said confusingly. The massive dinosaur simply blinked at the nonsensical statement. "Nevermind, we were able to retake an area, and I believe I was able to recover enough examples of the crystal tech to make some more progress on understanding it. Go bother Wormmon if you need something to keep you occupied."

As the human stomped off Dark Tyranomon frowned at his passing. "Worm, got any places that need my team to break them, or should I just try the 'armor' he made me again?" she asked shaking her head.

The insect digimon was still looking towards the kid. "I want you to go where they went and see what you can find," her real leader said sharply. "Anything could be the key to who those two were. If the crystals try and get in your way, do your best to make sure they can't regret it."

It was always a surprise when the little guy actually owned his role in things, and typically a pleasant one at that. "Sounds fine to me. Worst case they're sending some small guys in to try and retake it from under our noses," she said with a sinister grin.


	85. 4-15 Conflict Resumed

\--- Conflict Resumed ---

"Well, we can tell that they are stepping up their game," Shawn dully noted as the team finished clearing out the area around the new large stone construct that Upload was now using. "Gazi, what is it?"

"Slowly self destructing," Gazimon replied while the Digidestined uneasily formed a perimeter around them. "There was a lot of complexity in this thing, and they did not want to just shatter it like the rest. I still didn't get enough data soon enough to figure it out, but now we have some idea what is the most important thing to look for all things considered."

The various kids were all scattered around the area looking for signs of other digimon. Shawn was actually fairly impressed with how much more seriously Davis and Cody were taking combat now, although the others seemed more uneasy with the two of them as a result of it for some reason. Although Yolei was somewhat better about reacting to things, though she also had been rather distracted the entire time, as if she was only really seeing the digimon world for the first time. T.K. seemed mostly tired, but also had fully taken on the appearance of an old veteran trainer that was getting back into shape.

He was fairly sure the others had not been able to notice the just slightly harsher and more thoughtful nature of Kari's look at the world, but in Shawn's mind that was countered by the lighter, more enthusiastic look Gatomon had. As far as he could tell the two of them simply understood how the other was able to think better from their time swapped.

The other digimon on the other hand were a bigger concern. Davey, currently a Flamedramon, was looking over his own body with a consideration that matched his earlier reluctance to fight in that form today. Armadillomon was a bit better, but it was clear that of all the newer partnerships he was the most aware that his partner was a sibling, and that was influencing how he approached combat. Shawn hoped that Cody would find a way to participate himself soon so that would be less of an issue. Hawkmon by contrast had merely thrown himself into being a digimon with such force that Shawn was fairly sure he was going to need to step in, while Patamon was spending so much time clearly inspecting how being a digimon worked that he had been effectively useless in the battle.

"Alright everyone, I can tell you're all excited about getting back to work, but we want to take things easy until we have a better idea of what we're trying to accomplish," he said to the collection of kids and monsters. "We don't want to just go around breaking all of their stuff only to learn that it was all supporting some kind of unstable reaction that could take out entire chunks of the world." It would more importantly give the group more time to come to terms with their altered situation. "Replacing those can be time consuming."

"Well, that isn't reassuring," Davis complained. "Shouldn't that be a bigger issue?" He sounded like he thought Shawn meant something worse than a few missing hills to rebuild or forests to regrow.

"How big of chunks are you thinking?" Serperior asked to clear up that bit of confusion. "I mean, none is better than some, but you can't always avoid that kind of thing." Shawn had to agree, he'd heard about worse problems just from overenthusiastic League level trainers at times. "Generally you just need to gather a lot of pokemon to help fix the place after the fact. Well, at least clean things up so that they don't impact things too much."

"Uh, how can maps stay accurate if you have 'chunks' taken out of the landscape fairly regularly?" T.K. asked, confirming that they apparently did not have that issue.

"Well, that's what a cartographer is for isn't it?" Shawn asked to cover how nervous the idea of maps just staying accurate made him. He knew their world was an explored place, but the idea it was also fairly unchanging was unnerving. "They check the land to see how the pokemon that live there have changed it over time."

"That actually explains a lot of things about my mom," Cody said a touch distractedly. "She's always getting newer maps just in case something changed. Even before I knew about pokemon she said it was a habit she got into from her grandfather."

"I really wish I could say that isn't the kind of thing we've had to worry about before," Gatomon complained.

\---

"Your world is made out of paper," Skarmory warned his new human partner. Not trainer, the man wasn't ready for that and he was quite honestly past the point where he would truly fight again. "I'm far weaker than my prime, and I'm still being extra careful to not lop bits of your house off."

"You're a pile of swords pretending to be a bird," Matt countered, and he nodded accepting that as a perfectly valid point. "I'd think you'd be used to doing that."

"True, but I also don't know how best to avoid tiring myself out not breaking things here." He quickly checked his feathers with a quick preen to make sure that they were properly blunted for his new non-combatant status. "I'm almost resigned to just staying on the perch we got from my world."

"I, I agree that we should find a way to make our stuff stronger," Gabumon nervously interjected. Skarmory did not look sadly at the uneasy little brother of this part of his new family, the lizard seemed to have enough pride to not take that well. "I also need to keep myself in check to not damage things."

"I think we're all in that boat after going to your world, Skarmory," Hiroaki said with a bit of finality, and a quick glance to a somewhat broken chair. The older human was currently looking over the set of documents and books that the Porygon had given him regarding the long term medical treatments, and care for a proper pokemon. "We need to be thinking about that, and I think I need to ask if it is possible to fix that problem."

"The lack of energy should solve itself given enough time, we do provide some to the items we interact with," Skarmory noted uncertainly. "That is a very slow process, however, so we probably would need to find a faster way."

"So, what's it like in your world then?" Matt asked a bit quietly. Apparently both of the younger family members were rather shy.

"Well, so far the big thing I can see is that everything is a lot tougher there. Which is actually a bit frightening, as you have a lot of people here that I'm a bit worried about being around," the armored bird replied as casually as he could about that particular fear. "Louder too, with a different taste to the air. There's more artificial smells here, and while Steel types like myself are fine with that kind of thing other pokemon might have issues with the scent."

"Most people would agree that your world smells better," Hiroaki laughed a touch nervously, and clearly avoided looking over the condition of the apartment.

\---

Chikara Hida rolled his bone club between his hands. Their house was feeling more and more natural for pokemon inhabitants, and the small orange pendant around his neck allowed him to truly feel comfortable about his daughter in law and grandson's new base forms. That comfort was at the cost of his human nature, and he was unsure if he was fully aware of all that cost was.

"I'm considering visiting the Tomb-City," he said aloud, mostly to make sure that someone knew he was thinking of that option. "To know what being a Marowak truly means."

Fumiko paused in her review of her geology books, fault maps, and Ground type training guides. "You do know that you don't have to be a pokemon too?" she quietly asked.

"I do not have to, however, I also do not fully understand what my pokemon form is, what being a Marowak means about myself. Until I have that understanding, I do not think I can make that decision," Chikara calmly replied leaning on his club. He cautiously lifted a hand to rest it on his fused skull mask. "This is important, I would not be shaped like this if it was not. I wish to know why." What little he had heard so far chilled him, and the way some parts felt true while others did not clearly feel that way did not help as much as he would have expected.

"My grandfather did not go into very much detail about other kinds of pokemon," his daughter in law admitted after a moment. "The most I know about your species is that one of my great aunts lived among them. We did not meet her in the past because she was living there." She paused thoughtfully, and then nodded. "If you do travel to that city, can you try and find any relatives I might have among them?"

He nodded as well. "I should be able to, although I do not know how long I will be gone," he moved closer to see her work more clearly. The documents and maps were far easier to understand while he was also a Ground type, although he suspected that even then she had a better personal grasp of those things than he did. "This is something I feel should be done properly, and with a week just for travel I do not think I will be there for just a few hours again."

"A good assumption, none of us are familiar with bone keepers so learning about them will likely take some time," she agreed. "Although, I don't think we can spare anyone to travel with you," she admitted unhappily.

"I think it would be best for me to travel on my own," he said with finality. "I can most easily take time from the issues we face now out of all of us, and it is a personal issue."

\---

Davey wasn't sure he actually liked being a digimon again. His brother sure did, and he definitely wanted to help with saving the digimon world. It just was the case that being a human gave him so many more things he could do when that was over with. If anyone asked why he thought that way, he would have to admit that his mother's descriptions of what he could accomplish while human was a major influence, but another part was simply the same feeling Davis kept having problems with. He also knew he was smarter as a human, and he thought of things differently, like how Joe was usually rather uneasy with fighting but jumped into doing just that as a monster.

"So, that apparently works," his brother said thoughtfully, now once again in Flamedramon form despite not becoming a Veemon first. "Huh. I wonder if either of us will really need to be a Veemon again," Davis continued uncertainly, and Davey flinched slightly at how nice that sounded.

"That sounds like it would be strange," Yolei noted carefully. "I'm entirely not sure I want to try this." She sounded a lot less unsure than she had before.

"I think I'll stick with my own abilities," Cody added, and Davey didn't know where to begin thinking about how Cody had started looking fairly similar to Armadillomon when other normal humans weren't around. "Although, if we had more Digi-Eggs this would be a lot more useful." The Sandshrew then looked over at Davey thoughtfully. "I wonder, can we use each other's?" He then got out his D-Terminal. "Should we try?"

"If you can we should," TyranoGazimon added from where she was going over the group in the main DSS Troubleshooter Lab. "I really want to have data on if it is possible for both partners to be evolved at once, and in that case on what impact it has."

Davey and Yolei both shared a dubious look at this, but the Veemon simply nodded to agree. "What do I have to do?" he asked.

Suddenly a ball of yellow light moved from Cody's D-Terminal to Davis', which Davey was holding while they attempted to have his brother Armor Evolve. He passed the device and their Digivice over to the Flamedramon. "Okay, so, will this make him a Flamedramon, or something else?" Davis asked with concern as he carefully took the two items with his metal claws.

"Probably something else," Gazimon noted idly from where he was working on the data they had collected earlier, and picked up the cube that he kept with him commonly. "I've got three different ones of that kind of thing, and each makes me into a different species. Honestly, we might want to try mine with Cody, and maybe Joe too." He held out another block with more sides. "This one gives me Pegasusmon, while this other one ends up as Youkomon, and we know that the third at least definitely works with other pokemon."

That actually reassured the Veemon, as it meant this wasn't something totally new for this group. "Alright, I'm ready Davis," he told his brother, and then as the Flamedramon started the process he felt the same sensation he had become used to for armor evolution, although it was different, sharper, clearer. Strangely despite being the Crest of Knowledge Davey suddenly found himself having a harder time keeping his mind on any one thing at a time.

The new Honeybeemon took several disjointed attempts to fully look over his altered form, and he entirely missed the discussion around him during that time. His body was still fairly small, with the same yellow armor-like chitin that made up Digmon's body when one of the Hidas used the Digi-Egg. The plates were covered in short fuzz, and black bands decorated his large abdomen. In the time it took for him to get just that information he had buzzed around the entire room in a rush, and looked over everyone and everything else in the room with even less real focused thought. 

Because of all that he wasn't entirely surprised to find himself back as a Veemon on the other side of the group without really having felt in control of his body to lead to that point. "I think that I'd need to practice that one," Davey said nauseatedly.

"Are you okay, Davey?" Davis asked moving closer, still evolved. "You went a little crazy there when you turned into that bee digimon."

"I kind of feel bad for letting you try ours now," Cody said sympathetically. "Maybe one of the other ones would have been better?"

"Ah'd say he's a bit too fast a thinker to have an easy time with it," Armadillomon agreed with his brother. "Ah know ah think about things a lot faster like that too."

"You turned into a bug too, like Tentomon," Yolei noted thoughtfully, an odd change from how she had been reacting to new things. "I wonder if using the Digi-Egg of Love would have made you into a bird."

"Well, do you want to try Courage to see if you end up a lizard?" Davis asked curiously, and she actually seemed to consider it for a moment before shaking her head. "Well, if we find any more of them then we know it works for all of us, right?"

"Looks that way," Tyra complained. "Although I hate to say it, we should try that again to make sure it isn't causing any problems." Davey groaned at the thought of being so scatterbrained again.

\---

Ken watched the monitor showing smooth black forms of the artificial Control Spire digimon nervously as Dark Tyranomon led the first group in an attempt to retake an area that had been providing a number of raw materials for the factory that he had used to make this batch. The creatures were even stiffer in their actions than his enslaved digimon, and he really hoped that he could overcome that issue. Compared to the fluid motion and intelligent responses of their crystal enemies it was nowhere near enough, and he had already started an analysis of his few recovered samples of the hacker's technology in order to hopefully improve his own new creations.

"They would be better if they were handmade," Aru mumbled to herself. Apparently her digimon form could make high quality versions of these as a special power, but they simply needed too many to effectively deal with this issue to have her spending all her time working on that.

"Boss man, these new minions could be a lot better. I feel like I'm leading a pack of statues," the digital dinosaur complained. "I hope you don't care about me getting any of them back, because if things go south I'm just abandoning them."

"That would be the plan, Dark Tyranomon," the Digimon Emperor complained right back. "You are there to see if they are worth the expense in their current state, or if we need more work before it is worthwhile. If they can't cut it then use them as a distraction to get away."

"They don't look it," Wormmon criticized. "Are you sure that is the best you can do right now?" he asked Aru, which seemed a little strange, but him being a bit testy with the developer DIDN'T really matter.

"Right now, yes," she said agreeing with the unhappy mood of the digimon. "Despite how primitive they look their forces are very advanced. I'm going to need to look into some things to see if I can work around the limitations we put into your creations by default." Which made sense, a big part of an interesting game was limiting the player.

"Is it really bad enough that we can't just handle some of these targets ourselves?" Mumm asked quietly, checking his gun in his digimon form. "They can't have that many, can they?" Ken found himself jealous of the personal strength the pair of them wielded with that ability.

"We can't count on that. The fact they can make corrupted Destiny Stones at all is worse than we expected," Aru replied shaking her head. "We need to get rid of all of them to get things back on track." Ken had already decided to try and isolate the energy of those in the future, at least to give an accurate count of how much work that would be.

The screen suddenly lit up with a brilliant red flash, and the artificial digimon thankfully reacted to the now present threats appropriately by attacking the crystal monsters. That was unfortunately the end of the good news, as even the smaller versions of those foes were easily dodging the black constructs' attacks and striking back strongly. "Don't bother Dark Tyranomon, that isn't good enough," Ken harshly ordered.

"Don't have to tell me boss, I have eyes," she agreed turning away with one such eye trained backwards to make sure that the Control Spire digimon actually did distract their enemies.

\---

Yolei wasn't sure what possessed her to try this. The large mirror they had brought/made for this test showed her a large, pointy, red dragonfly monster that looked more like it was made of armor plate than an insect's chitin. She looked down at her sharp metal claws, and a part of her was more upset with how this Flybeemon body felt less awkward than being a Halsemon, despite the fact that she had in fact turned into a bug too. It seemed to her that it shouldn't be that she just didn't like being on four legs instead of two.

"Are you alright?" Flamedramon asked, and Yolei almost had to laugh out loud at her personal joke that Davis was spending too much time in that shape. "You've just been looking at yourself for a while, and well. You haven't taken being a digimon well before," he added finishing in an awkward mumble.

"I feel, combative," she said after a moment. "This one definitely is making me think differently than the Digi-Egg of Love did. I am thinking more, but most of that is about how to beat you in a fight."

"You look sort of like a Scizor," Shawn noted calmly as the maybe-human walked closer with his snake partner/brother leaning on him heavily. "Although not very closely. Mostly just as a red armored insect monster."

"I actually feel like fighting now," Yolei complained as she realized she was checking to see if he wanted to fight. "Ugh, we need more Digi-Eggs somehow."

"Ah agree with that one," Armadillomon said with a sigh. "While its fun ta see what y'all look like with that one, I kinda still need it myself."

"Yeah," she admitted flexing her claws, and then quite deliberately she ended the evolution and returned to humanity. Suddenly all of how she was just thinking caught up with her, and she could not stop herself from shuddering at the fact that she had not only just been a bug, but comfortable as one.

"I'm trying to work out something," Izzy said from where he was discussing such things with Gazimon, the older Digidestined had arrived while she was armor-evolved and as a result she had only really noticed him before as a non-threat to simply dismiss. "There are a lot of issues though. I don't think you can spare one for me to use as a base right now, and I have too much else to get to that quickly. Just making sure we don't get fully cut off from the digimon world is the big issue right now."

"If we're mostly up against Upload then I should be able to just become Angemon," Patamon noted. "I mean, I know everyone is worried about the Crest of Hope now, but it is an option."

"Big problem is time, kid," Gazimon bluntly replied. "Right now our focus is on finding out what the bad guys are doing-"

"Making new artificial digimon," the circuit board dinosaur that apparently wasn't a digimon cut in.

Gazimon sighed heavily. "Yes, 326, Upload has-"

"Not Upload, the Emperor. Just spotted a group of what looks like animated Control Spires attempting an attack on one of the less defended Upload areas," the machine interrupted again. "We were watching it to plan for our own next attack. They don't seem to be that great, but we might be looking at the start of a total war across the digimon world now."

Yolei froze as the papers in Izzy's hands fell, and T.K.'s eyes hardened in a way that somewhat frightened her, but it was the sort of sad look on Kari's face that was the thing that actually caused Yolei to pale. "How much of the digital world can we evacuate?" the Digidestined of Light asked calmly, far too calmly. The kind girl's entire mood like someone who was about to comfort someone else because their relatives had all just died.

"My own backup plan was to possibly make our own army somehow, but evacuation's probably a better option from a moral standpoint," Janice sighed. "For the moment we can support about twice what we have right now, and the good news is that it looks like the Imperial and Upload forces are focused on each other right now. More than that and we have secondary issues we need time to work out, so if we can keep the evacuations slow enough we should be able to handle them."

"Can we still evacuate them normally through the block?" Izzy asked Gazimon in a bit of a rush.

"We can punch holes using a lot of power," the rabbit digimon admitted rubbing his head. "That's the fastest way to get them out, and anything else that goes through the portal while we hold it open will get a nasty surprise from me with the level of control I have over the refugee worlds. It takes a lot of power though, so we're hoping to avoid it for our own missions in that world."

"Control like Etemon and Datamon?" T.K. asked darkly, and Yolei wondered why exactly it set him off so harshly.

"I'm trying to think of every idea they would have about using the Network, and doing the opposite," Gazimon joked just as darkly. "You'd be surprised how often that rule actually doesn't make things nicer than what they did."


	86. 4-16 Artificial Courage

\--- Artificial Courage ---

The front lines were not a valid target at the moment, none of the Digidestined disagreed on that point. The main issue was that the Imperial forces were still getting to the point that they could do more than hold locations, so that only meant that Upload wasn't putting any more effort into taking any new areas just yet. The good news was that this development seemed to have stopped the Digimon Emperor's attempts at expansion for the time being, and also focused Upload on the defense for once as this had made it so more of the Emperor's enslaved forces could strike back at the Hackware forces.

So the plan was to go for the smaller sites on both sides. Yolei was honestly a bit worried about that, but it was the best idea they had, and would give them more time to work out how the Control Spires and the new World Stones worked. The large false-stone constructs Upload was using to control access to the digimon's world were scary, mostly because of how they did so much more to the world around them than the simple towers that the Emperor used.

The way that the smaller Upload sites like the one they were at now looked didn't help. The widely scattered patches of crystal-like terrain and devices were somehow more unnerving that an area that was already totally covered in the stuff. It seemed to make the fact that it was corrupting the world more obvious, and unfortunately gave Shawn and Serperior more reason to take advantage of the lack of foes to scan those devices.

So far they had found a few clouds of the sharp blades that apparently were the youngest stage of the 'Hackware' creatures, guarded by two sets of three of the larger three dimensional claws that acted as the next stage. All of those had quickly vanished in red flashes after just a couple of Rookie level attacks that didn't even manage to hit, although that did mean that the alarm had been raised.

"Well, well, well. The Digidestined," HackBiyomon suddenly said from a nearby tree branch before they even found the World Stone. "Did you all enjoy your vacation from your natural form?" the Upload digimon asked with a dark tone. Yolei bristled at the way this digimon so casually poked at the horrible week she had just gone through.

"Actually, I was able to become my natural form for the first time because of it," Cody noted as they all braced for combat.

The bird digimon simply looked dully at the currently human child. "Any other exceptions?" the pink and red avian asked in a tone that was too cold for Yolei's liking.

"Technically yes? We kind of have our bodies swapped with each oth-" Shawn and Serperior started in unison before they cut themselves off with a massive burst of stinging leaves.

HackBiyomon countered this with one of the red barriers that Upload used to defend against attacks. "Oh, up for a fight then?" she said blandly, as if this all wasn't important. "Maybe you will have fun with our latest advancement." A familiar looking trio of fireballs shot out from further inside the forest behind her, one each nearly slamming into Hawkmon, Veemon, and Armadillomon as the newer digimon barely dodged. A new red polygonal creature emerged from the direction of the forest. It was the most complex Hackware Yolei had seen yet, but also was terrifyingly familiar. "HackFlamedramon, take them down."

"Davey!" Davis shouted, and that actually got a confused blink out of the evil digimon.

"Right, Davis!" Veemon said, and then evolved into a Flamedramon himself. "Let's see how it stacks up to the real thing!"

"Oh? You want to test that?" HackBiyomon smugly replied. "Alright then." A massive series of red barriers appeared around the two lizard monsters, separating them from everyone while leaving them visible. "How about a one on one match?" Yolei quickly scanned the area around the bird digimon, hoping that their enemy had left herself vulnerable, but the glint of large red crystals deeper in the trees made her suspect that there were more enemies waiting for them to try something like that.

Worried, but not to the point of forcing a fight she directed her attention to the makeshift arena. Yolei was unsure about how it was easier to think about it as being 'Davey' instead of 'Flamedramon' in this context, but the named digimon did quite quickly move to attack his polygonal doppelganger. The Hackware was clearly less familiar with moving in that form, and it did not seem to be as capable as their teammate.

"Be ready to evolve everyone," T.K. said somewhat quietly while Davis was focused on his partner. A small part of her wished that they did have more Digi-Eggs, that way she wouldn't be just standing around when those hidden enemies finally decided to attack.

After what felt like mere moments Davey landed a strong enough hit to cause the other Flamedramon to flash and turn into one of the smaller four legged Rookie Hackware in the same way their own digimon returned from evolution. Yolei even spotted a small orange crystal falling to the ground. "Well, I guess that was something," HackBiyomon huffed, and then motioned to her hidden forces. Six of the block like Goliath Hackware emerged to face them, a rather uncomfortable amount of the larger monsters. The barriers shattered right afterward, and all of their digimon armor digivolved to their typical forms.

Without really thinking about it Yolei rushed forward to grab the dropped orange item. As her hands closed around it and the armored digimon surged past her to intercept their enemies she felt that she might have been trying to get it back to Izzy, or maybe even just stopping the Hackware from using it again. However, as soon as she had it her hands she felt the same sensation as when she tried the Digi-Egg of Knowledge, and a similar one to what she felt whenever she helped Hawkmon evolve. She actually sighed before nodding and activating the item, more worried about dealing with any other hidden enemies than about any side effects.

Her body suddenly grew far larger, and she felt stronger immediately. A quick glance revealed she was a large blue dinosaur with dark orange stripes, and she could feel a mane of feathers coming from the back of her head. With a bit of odd pride she let out a powerful roar, and then charged the nearest Goliath. Her new Allomon form closed the distance in an instant, and her head smashed into the crystal-like monster with a crackling sound that was soon followed by the now familiar sight of the creature retreating in a red flash.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw HackBiyomon flying away, and noticed that the evil digimon looked surprisingly smug.

\---

The item was not quite a Digi-Egg, not quite a Crest, and not quite one of Gazimon's Polyhedrons, all while having features clearly related to all three of those instances of evolutionary items. Izzy was fairly sure that it had been made by someone who also had the data on how to make a Crest, while they had access to an instance of the Digi-Eggs, and who also understood the means to convert non-digimon to digimon. Which sadly gave them very little new information, as HackBiyomon clearly had the final bit of information, and she likely had Datamon's notes on creating Crests. So this only told him that there were in fact other Digi-Eggs out there, and at least one of them had fallen into the hands of Team Upload.

Physically it was a palm sized, disk shaped, crystal-like structure that unusually for Upload creations was a familiar orange color with a matching Crest of Courage symbol. After her transformation using the item it had moved itself into Yolei's D-Terminal, where it had been distinct from her Digi-Egg, and where it was easily retrieved once they reached the Troubleshooter Lab.

Izzy, Gazimon, A-0, the strange jellyfish digimon LAS, and about half the DSS development team had all then immediately all but torn the thing apart to see what it was and how it worked.

"So, is it really safe?" Yolei asked with clear worry as soon as Izzy got back into the conference room they had taken over for the others to wait in for the results. Considering she had actually used it to evolve that was a critical question.

"Honestly, it is a bit easier to use than the Digi-Eggs. Possibly even a bit safer in some more obscure ways," the Digidestined of Knowledge commented. "As far as we can tell it is actually far too simple for them to have put anything hazardous for you into it." He handed the Artificial Courage over to her. "Which means the good news is that if you can capture more of them it would solve the issue of not having enough Digi-Eggs to go around. That is either a prototype, or well, or they're trying to mass produce them."

"In which case we're looking at armies of Hackware mimicking Flamedramon," T.K. said darkly. "Unless they have the other Crests too?"

"They most certainly could. We're actually quite sure this was made from them having access to another Digi-Egg, and from the differences it has from Davis' it looks like it isn't just another copy of the Digi-Egg of Courage," Izzy informed the younger team. "I'm trying to work out where exactly that could be, so we could try and track it down and possibly stop them from producing any more of these." The team reacted appropriately to that grim news, as the thought that they could have a lot more of these devices was worrying at best.

"Can we make more too?" Davis asked looking thoughtful. "Or do we need them to do it so we can get more before we stop them?"

"I think that DSS can in fact help us make more of them," Izzy admitted, glad to see the younger team's leader getting a better handle on good questions like those. "I still would like you all to collect as many for us as you can though. We might be able to use them to create other useful things."

"You will be checking all of them just to be sure they aren't sneaking anything in, right?" T.K. asked a bit more harshly, and the boy genius almost laughed at how that sounded just like what Matt would have after Tai had asked a solid question.

"Of course," Izzy agreed easily, then paused. "Well, we obviously won't have time if you try and use one right after you get it again, but other than that we plan on scanning each one individually."

\---

Davis was seriously considering asking Davey if he could use their Digi-Egg to turn into a Flamedramon for things like this. Cody was already spending every meeting as a Sandshrew, so it probably wouldn't be too odd.

"Davis," Yolei said as they started to leave. He paused and turned to her, only to find the Artificial Crest of Courage pressed into his hands. "I think you should have this."

The new leader of the field Digidestined team cringed at that statement, unable to stop himself from reacting that way to her unease with transforming. "Alright," he nervously said. "I guess you didn't like being a dinosaur?" It sort of made sense, but he still didn't like how she had such a hard time with the fact that the digimon needed as much help as they could get.

She looked embarrassed about that. "Well, it wasn't too bad, but," she said before sighing. "I know you and V- Davey like the idea of fighting at the same time. So I thought that you should have this instead." 

He realized that she wasn't sure about giving it to him, and she actually hadn't yet let go of the small item. "I doubt they only had one," he told her, and flinched at how that wasn't good news. "I can wait for the next one." He did not want to take it from her if the problem before was just that she didn't like her own Digi-Egg's form. He knew that if he was stuck with an armor form he didn't like he would avoid it, like how Davey and him didn't particularly want to use their Crest of Knowledge armor form.

"We don't know how long that will be," she sadly replied. "You did better while we were training, so it would be better if you had it." She finally dropped the stone into his hand, still looking reluctant.

"Alright," Davis agreed unhappily. "But you get the next one." She didn't look like she knew how to react to that declaration, but he still felt it was needed.

\---

"Good news is that I don't need to bother setting up another transformation chamber," HackBiyomon suddenly said as if appearing in the house was normal, which pretty soon it would be if she kept this up.

Sora sighed at this now common occurrence. Her younger new sister was honestly more of an annoyance than an uneasy reality at this point, as the digimon seemed to have decided that family was a safe group to complain about her work troubles to. "Was it really that hard to set things up to do that the first time?" Sora asked in the hopes of redirecting the incoming rant.

"Hmph, you're probably used to whatever fancy stuff DSS has," the bird monster huffed. "It took the better part of a day just to setup that ruin to have all the parts for it, and the core components were burned out in the process to transform all of us. Although I guess that you all can just change on your own now given that the Yolei girl turned into a dinosaur with the new Artificial Courage."

"Wait, Yolei digivolved?" Sora asked disbelievingly. "Willingly?"

"I do not like the idea that it is that much of a surprise," HackBiyomon grumbled. "The thing is the bare minimum we can make reproductions of the evolution items they're using, it should not have made her evolve unless she wanted to."

"I guess she's feeling better about that," she replied shaking her head. "I'm glad, but also worried she will still have a breakdown over it."

"She almost smashed a Goliath, I think she will be okay," her new sister complained.

"Angry that they're too strong then?" Biyomon asked flapping into the room.

"A little," HackBiyomon actually admitted easily. "Just because the Hackware aren't actually intelligent doesn't mean I'm fine with losing them."

That was a strange thought, as so far they had not really considered the Hackware if they were living beings. "Should, should we try and not destroy them?" Sora had to ask with great guilt.

"Ha, right. They don't care about that," HackBiyomon complained. "It honestly is a bit hard to keep them from letting themselves get killed. The original ones were made to be expendable devices instead of creatures, and now their code is set solidly enough that we can't manage to get any of them to have some self preservation unless we trick them. I just hope that the next time I face them we don't lose any of the Crabs."

\---

Davis and Davey turned out to look more than different enough when they were both Flamedramon to tell who was who, although it had taken seeing both of their armored forms next to each other for the Digidestined to be able to pick out where the small bits of their muzzle patterns and the larger differences in their flame patterns marked out which was which. The two of them were trying to stay in that form longer while they moved to check out another minor Upload conquered region the day after the last excursion, with the young leader of the new team eager to use his new capacity to evolve.

"Really now? Back for more already?" HackBiyomon asked just moments after they crossed into the region. There was a larger than they had expected force of Hackware with her, although not many Champion stage, very few Stones, and no Worms.

"Always!" Davis shouted to the other digimon.

"We wanted to show you that you only made us stronger last time," Yolei added confidently as the Digidestined wasted no time using armor evolution to prepare for a fight.

Shawn and Serperior both met HackBiyomon's eyes for a moment, and the grass under the force of mostly Crab units twisted slightly in a way that didn't match the wind.

"Are you? I don't see why that matters," the bird monster said, and then with a flash of light from the Pokedex around her neck she evolved herself. The resulting massive black polygonal digimon quickly flapped into the air, and the Digidestined hesitated at the sight of Dos forming and vanishing into her body. "Let's see if you really think that," HackSaberdramon rumbled, and then with a wave of her wings a number of multicolored stones fell into the many Crabs on the battlefield.

They proceeded to turn into a variety of polygonal copies of Flamedramon, Halsemon, and Digmon, which were familiar, but there was also large ram shaped creatures and a few fairly demonic looking creatures that seemed out of place compared to the other three variants. This small army of Armor evolutions was not the plan, and only the sudden burst of vines that entangled the enemy force bought enough time for the Digidestined to get in the first hit.

"I don't think that taunting the digimon who could turn us all into another species was a great idea," Yolei's Halsemon brother complained as he blasted one of the HackDigmon. Then squawked as his sister charged forward to grab the small yellow gem that fell out of the Crab just before the Hackware teleported away. "We are going to discuss your dislike of our original evolution!" he shouted at her now Flybeemon shaped form as she joined the fight.

Cody on the other hand waited for another of the Artificial Knowledge gems to fall instead of trying out a new form while in combat. "I think having more fighters is a bit more important right now," he countered as he became another Digmon himself.

Kari grabbed a gem from a defeated demonic looking Crab form, resulting in a dark colored Nefertimon. "Those ones are the Crest of Light," she shouted out to the group, then paused for an instant to look at herself. "I am sure of that even if it doesn't look it," she clarified with emphasis.

"Rams are Hopes," another Pegasusmon said, with a dark look directed his way from his brother as everyone realized this meant that T.K. had risked evolving himself.

\---

Ken Ichijouji looked at the feed from the new stealth sensor array drone with a calm face that was not matched by any of the others in the control room. Wormmon was simply glaring at the new complication, Aru was gripping the chair she was sitting in hard enough that it creaked, and Mumm was visibly worried.

The screen showed a fight between both of his current enemies, a lucky catch in the trial of the drones. With the aid of the powerful vine-snake that had first indicated that something was off the Digidestined were actually easily breaking up the Hacker's new forces, and the boy genius was sure that even without that help they would have beaten this particular force. The Digidestined did not have many fighters, but they were the best fighters available to any side right now as far as he could tell, bar his new advisors.

"Well it's nice to know we aren't the only ones losing," Aru complained sarcastically.

"They're using them," Ken bluntly said carefully inspecting the small objects that were being used to artificially induce evolution in both the digimon and humans.

"Who's using who?" Mumm asked in clear confusion, while Aru now had her full undivided attention on Ken.

"The Hackers are using the Digidestined. Those kids are stronger on their own than anything we have right now, but there are only a few of them. They are easily contained or distracted compared to us," he said with a dull calm. "So they are seeing how their new equipment fares against them to try and get it strong enough to face us overwhelmingly." He looked over to Wormmon. "We might want to try the same. Send new forces against them instead to see how they stack up, and try and refine them that way."

"What," Aru flatly said, looking back up at the feed.

"That does make sense," Wormmon agreed darkly. "Even with the new Control Spire monsters we are mostly just standing even with them. If we could get each of those better against an even stronger foe then we could easily overtake these 'Hackers'." The insect digimon turned to Ken. "But this is bad, Emperor. With these they can now send their less developed forces on short attacks into our area while the stronger ones simply stay back to defend."

His advisors looked uneasy with the AI's response, and with his own, but it made some sense that they needed him to think of things for them since he was helping them develop the game. Although, it was strange how his MEMORIES of being approached for that task were so fragmented. He wasn't sure if he had also forgotten other things he was supposed to do for them while testing.

"Wormmon, make recovery of any of those items the Hackers are using a priority," he ordered. "I want to look them over myself to see if we can get any use out of them."

\---

The Digidestined returned to the Troubleshooter Lab using a Digital Gate as soon as they were able to safely leave the area, still in their armor evolutions. The whole group had a large pile of the Artificial Crests by that point, all of which were now going to be handed off to Izzy.

The number of large monsters in the room made it a very tight fit, and as a result the four armor forms of Hope and Light quickly reverted to their normal shapes, with Kari and T.K. quickly removing the Upload made crystals for analysis. The two Digmon followed, although the third user of the Crest of Knowledge held off for the moment, along with the only user of Love and the two with known to be safe Courage forms.

"Yolei, why do you have a problem with this form?" Halsemon proceeded to demand of the team's Flybeemon harshly.

"Too many legs," his sister replied with a touch of anger herself. "I do better when I'm not thinking I have more legs than I should."

Everyone blinked at that statement. "Wait really?" Cody asked with clear confusion, which was helped by the fact that he was currently a Sandshrew that was standing on all four of his legs. "It's that bad for you?"

"Honestly, it is actually a really big thing," Yolei confirmed while looking over her current form. "I mean, right now I have a bunch of extra limbs, but because I'm still sort of human shaped it's easier to not think about that." She then exited her evolution, and shuddered. "Although it is really creepy that I'm fine with being a bug while I am one."

"I still want to know what those two shapes that weren't the same as ours were," Davis said with a sigh. "The other three were all our forms, but their Hope was that weird ram monster, and that one for Light looked more like a demon than anything."

"What exactly happened?" Izzy asked a bit faintly from where he had seen them all arrive.

\---

"So, I can say that they are all safe, at least as far as a quick check shows," the boy genius sighed after they finished investigating the massive number of Artificial Crests. "But we definitely know they are mass producing them now." He looked over to Davis, who was still a Flamedramon despite everyone else being back to their default forms. "As for those two unknown digimon forms, I think I can confirm that they are some combination of your digimon and the armor evolutions. It looks like they have integrated the code that allows you to evolve into their Hackware in order to use the same process, although it is a bit scrambled so there are varying results."

"So, all we need to do is try them out with each of us until we find the right ones?" Kari asked, and then looked over at Gatomon.

"I'm willing to try," Yolei declared a bit strongly reaching for the box of gems. "Maybe we can use those shapes."

"Start with Light," Izzy complained. "We might have more than enough to give you all two of each, but I still want to hold off on using Hope until I finish my analysis." T.K. looked like he wanted to argue. "I know it worked for you this time, and because of that I'm moving that to the top of my list of things to do."

Yolei nodded at his instruction as she selected one of the white gemstones, and then shifted into a somewhat larger form. Her arms were replaced by white and gold feathered wings, and her feet and legs were now the talons and lower body of a large bird, but her torso and head were still both human. Her upper body was covered in thick armor plates, and a helmet hid any hair she might have had. The others could tell that her face was still mostly the same shape, but that was only just possible with the makeup and helmet covering it. "Whoa, that's odd," she said with a strangely grand tone as she flapped a bit to keep upright. "Ugh, can I add 'usable arms' to the things I need from an evolution? These Harpymon wings are not like a Hawkmon's at all."

"I'll go next," Davis said, then looked thoughtful. "Do you think we can just go from one right to another?"

"I can," Gazimon replied. "Might as well try and see, I can tell you that it is really helpful to have options about that kind of thing."

Davis nodded and picked up a white gemstone of his own. His body then shifted directly from Flamedramon into a demonic form that overall matched the mystery digimon the Hackware had become. His body was thin with tough skin the white color of bleached fabric, with pale blue for his claws and tail that seemed to hint at a connection with Veemon. It was also covered in silver belts that they could tell were more binding him than decorating him, with two larger golden metal shapes on his forearms, and notably a thick silver metal one over his eyes. His ears and wings were made of white feathers that were the same shade as the rest of his body.

"Wow, you look like a Devidramon that an Angemon made into a pet," Gazimon said with just a hint of unease.

"I, can still see?" Davis asked in a slightly sinister gravely version of his voice. "How does that work?"

"Oddly," Patamon and Gatomon said together. "It is really weird being able to do that when your eyes are all covered," Patamon added afterward. "Although it looks like we found the right one. What's that digimon called?

"I'm a Gargoylemon right now," the angelic demon answered as he flexed his limbs. "Which is definitely odd, but might be useful."

"This new capacity to take on other forms is nice," Shawn cut in. "But we do now know for sure that they definitely are mass producing them for combat with the Emperor," he grimly informed the group. "We probably didn't make a dent in that given how easily they let us take these."

The Digidestined all nodded grimly at this fact.


	87. 4-17 TV Troubles

\--- TV Troubles ---

Hiroaki Ishida probably could have left the small red and white sphere containing his new monster at home when he went to work, possibly even should have done so, but with the way things had gone so far he felt they would both be a bit safer together than on their own right now. Although, he didn't think Skarmory looked enough like a normal bird to just easily have him out and about instead of stuck in the small sphere. So far that hadn't caused any issues, and the pokemon seemed happy to be on hand too, so that was worth the effort.

"Mr. Ishida, we saw it again," one of the other employees of the TV station said just as he was about to sit down at his desk.

"That vanishing shadow?" he asked dubiously as he started up his computer and sat down. There was a rumor going around for a while now about strange things happening at the station, in particular a mysterious shadow appearing on the equipment that went away when you looked over the footage again.

"It's happening more often," his coworker confirmed, and then quietly moved closer. "Some of us noticed you were distracted a bit last week and, well, we were wondering if it could have anything to do with, well you know. The monsters. If it was them coming back and..." The other man cringed instead of outright implying that his sons were in danger again.

He shook his head at the fact that they apparently had already made that connection, and then paused as he thought about how there was actually something going on with that. "You're sure it’s happening more often?" he asked seriously, and with unease took out the pokeball.

"Yeah, it's only been two weeks since the last time, and it was a couple of weeks for the time before," the man replied looking a mixture of relieved and worried about his response. "What, what can we do?"

"Skarmory, any ideas?" Hiroaki asked letting the bird monster out and hoping it had been paying attention somehow.

"Sounds like a ghost," the metal avian said as it formed from the flash of white energy to perch on his shoulder. "Although if you don't have-" As he finished settling he froze. "Ah. Actually your world not having energy just means that a Ghost's energy stands out a lot more than normal."

"Why did I think asking about this was a good idea?" the coworker said to himself quietly. "So, there is actually a ghost here?"

"Yes, although a weak one, it probably needs help to manifest fully. Important dates, or sympathetic events," Skarmory answered, clearly not helping the man's mood by replying himself. "When I was working with Rodger on cases involving restless spirits we would have to get a Channeler to help the smaller ones explain what they were after, or if needed to get them so we could defeat them before they naturally grow powerful enough to cause problems."

\---

Tai looked unhappily at the phone. "I see. So, just to be clear here, the TV station is willing to call in the Digidestined to help with an issue that you are having with a ghost?" he asked incredulously. His mother had called him over from where he had been working on an attempt to figure out what they would need in order to build a base for the Digidestined in their world.

"I am being officially asked to contact you about this," Matt's father confirmed this from the other end of the line. "Honestly, I'm trying to keep you as the one in charge of things so that we can have someone from our world looking at you like that."

"You do know I'm going to have to just ask a bunch of people from another world to help us too, right? I doubt whatever this is can be handled by Joe and Izzy looking it over," the Digidestined of Courage cautioned as his sisters both spotted him and realized that the conversation was about the team.

"Enough of my coworkers and bosses know that you all are the ones that saved the world that they honestly were considering asking one of you themselves at this point," the older man admitted. "We apparently weren't as careful as we thought about that, or in particular about last week."

"So, you can't ask the people from another world to help directly, but you can ask us?" Tai tried as a different angle. This was not the way he expected to have to deal with being revealed, and he was kind of hoping to put it off a bit longer.

"Well, yeah. Not to mention Skarmory says that the energy feels unusual to him, and well. The only thing I think it could be, given that, is the ghost of a digimon," Mr. Ishida sympathetically noted, and Tai had to force himself to keep his grip on the phone so he didn't drop it. "So in that case the Digidestined are the ones who should deal with this, even if you need to get some more outside help."

Tai looked over at Gatomon, and while she was doing a good job of hiding it she clearly had heard enough of both sides of the conversation to understand the implications. He was less sure about Kari, but ironically that was because his original sister was the one who could better hide that kind of thing from him. "I'll get the team together and see what support we can get from DSS," he finished more seriously, and then sighed. "Did you really show them the giant metal bird you got from the other world?"

"They apparently half expected it," the older man complained. "Let me know when you're coming over, I'll make sure we can cover for you here."

"Alright, I'll call you then," Tai replied and hung up. "Are you two up for that? Worst case..." he trailed off unsure if Gatomon seeing a ghost of her lost friend would be better or worse than Myotismon being back.

"Don't even think I'm not going," the cat digimon harshly responded.

"I didn't ask if you wanted to go, I asked if you were up for it," he said simply. "We can probably put it off a little while if you needed time first-"

"I'm fine!" she insisted, and Tai definitely regretted saying anything.

\---

Davis looked over his teammates as they arrived outside the TV station. Kari and T.K. were notably nervous, as were their older brothers. Yolei seemed more worried about Hawkmon than anything right at the moment, while the bird digimon looked uncertain. Cody and Armadillomon were quiet, which was actually fairly normal. Gatomon looked like she was feeling off, and the other digimon of the original team were staying protectively close to her. Davey was the one he was the most worried about, as his brother was uneasily hiding from any potential passing gazes near his legs.

"So, are we just standing out here, or am I helping you all search for a ghost?" TyranoGazimon asked bluntly and simply continued towards the doors while taking out her scanner. "Because these guys are apparently expecting us, and the people out here in the open aren't."

"Yeah, we probably should hurry inside," Tai sighed, and Davis felt bad about how glad he was that the older kid was taking charge this time. Everyone always compared him to the Digidestined of Courage, and after the past week he was really sure that he hadn't actually learned how to be a real leader from Tai yet. Sure with soccer he'd learned a lot, but this was honestly one of the few times he'd actually seen Tai in charge of a group doing something more important that just playing a sport.

"Oh good they're here," a lady just inside the doorway said as she spotted the digimon. "You don't think it is going to get as bad as last time do you?"

"We're making sure it doesn't mam," Tai replied sounding serious in a way that Davis wished he could pull off. "Is there any location where this 'shadow' is occurring more than anywhere else?"

"I don't know. We weren't really sure it was even a thing," the lady admitted uncertainly.

"If there is anywhere you know death occurred that would be the most likely place to start," the metal bird pokemon, Skarmory, said from out of sight. Matt's father walked in with the monster easily resting on his shoulder. The pokemon then locked his gaze on Gatomon. "Ah, I'm sorry-"

"It's fine, I'm fine," the cat digimon quickly cut him off, and Davis suddenly didn't want to know why she was having problems with this, even if he probably was going to learn anyway.

Matt's dad then led them through the building up to the large ball shaped section. The workers they encountered along the way all seemed uneasy with the presence of the digimon, but nobody actually stopped them, and a couple of them even looked a little relieved to see them. Davis was a bit worried about all of this, and really wished he had worn a mask, or even had been brave enough to have just come as Flamedramon. Once or twice he even ended up jumping at shadows.

"This is the place," Kari said distractedly as they looked out the window onto the roof. "What do we do now?"

"Got two options for you kids," Tyra replied, still focused on her scanner. "The blunt way where I summon at least one god of ghosts, or the time consuming way where I go over this place with this thing for a while."

"Maybe we shouldn't be summoning gods if we don't have to?" Tai asked, and Davis had to agree that bringing that shadow god here wasn't something to joke about.

"Given what I'm expecting to find? I might need to call both of them anyway," the patchwork digimon confusingly replied. Then paused notably and re-checked something, right before a shadow shakily formed out of nowhere.

"Gatomon," a voice said very weakly, then groaned and cut out.

"They don't have anywhere near enough power," Tyra noted while Gatomon froze from the unseen voice. "But, I think their data might actually all be here."

"So what if his data's here? What does that get us?" the cat digimon harshly said. "He's dead and hurting-"

"He's in better shape than I was," TyranoGazimon sharply cut her off. "Which is why I'm calling the digital god who brought me back to life to help us."

"Wait, that wasn't a joke?" Tai had time to ask before a pair of far larger inexplicable shadows appeared on either side of the room, one of them looking oddly blocky and both far too deep.

The massive forms of two different Giratina rose out of the ground, although the one that emerged from the blocky shadow looking sort of like Delta 2. The smaller shadow that had first formed shrank back a bit at their appearance. "Ah, just a moment," the smoother one that Davis had encountered before rumbled, and suddenly the entire room fell into deeper shadows. The original shadow they were apparently here for suddenly turned into a small man shaped digimon in a very tattered wizards outfit. "There you are small one, a safer place to try and manifest."

"Guys. I told the receptionist that this wasn't going to be as bad as last time," Tai complained. "Who are you two?"

"Um, hello. I'm Charlie 13, and this is Giratina," the blocky one said, then frowned at the wizard ghost. "Huh, Tyra this guy's less dead than you were."

"I'm less dead? What did she get killed by?" the digimon asked, then blinked as if he could not believe he could ask. "I can think?"

"To be clear, the Dark Network is the thing that killed and ate me, and if the arm wasn't an indication it didn't exactly leave everything behind," Tyra complained, and Davis suddenly was rather worried about how bad things got for Shawn's group. Her body had not seemed too unusual for a digimon, but if those scale patches were injuries they definitely would have been enough to kill her.

"As for the clearer thoughts, small ghost, that is my power," Giratina noted. "I have moved this room closer to my own realm, where your current form is more usable. You likely would only have the bare basic ability to exist without that, and honestly that's half the reason it is so hard for ghosts to give answers to questions. You're already struggling to just remember the way words work, so you just say associations in the hope that whoever you found is able to understand you enough."

"Wait, stop! Just, just stop!" Gatomon said breathlessly. "What the hell do you mean 'Wizardmon's less dead'?" she raged at Tyra. Davis looked away as he spotted tears in her eyes, instead looking at the now named digimon's ghost. The rather human looking guy was clearly shocked with everything that was happening, and honestly Davis wanted to help the guy somehow.

"I mean I am not going to just stand by and not try and bring someone back that is in the same boat I was," the patchwork digimon calmly but firmly replied. "So can you guys do it?"

"No," Charlie 13 said immediately. "Or at least I can't on my own. This isn't a digital world, and while he is intact now I can't move him to one and keep him that way."

"Yes," Giratina said as soon as his blocky counterpart finished. "Although, all things considered there isn't really anyone I can't bring back to 'life' as long as I can still reach them. One of the perks of helping to make a universe is that you know how to make some rather odd things." He walked closer to the ghost. "The side effect of course is that he stops being a mundane ghost, and instead will be a Ghost typed pokemon." Davis had to blink at the thought of a 'mundane' ghost, and he could fairly easily see that only Skarmory didn't agree with that being an odd thing to say.

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time I ended up a different kind of creature," Wizardmon said sounding a bit uncertain. "What other downsides are you leaving out?"

"Being a pokemon is the downside," Tyra said dully. "Do we have time for me to go over everything with him?" she asked Giratina, who nodded even though Tai was shaking his head. "Right, the biggest issue is that you will want to fight more." She paused to see his reaction, while Davis could see the other Digidestined all shooting a glance at Cody. "After that is a bunch of smaller things, although. Although the biggest of those is you'd still be a ghost. Which means that you'd be a bit of a prankster and have a fairly harsh attitude."

"So, it wouldn't do anything to him?" Gatomon asked quietly, she had just been staring at Wizardmon ever since Tyra had said they were bringing him back to life. "Because that sounds like I remember him." Davis felt she sounded far too sad about remembering the guy.

"That sounds fine. What do I need to do?" Wizardmon asked cutting off the explanation. Suddenly all of the darkness that had formed around the room spiraled into his body, which became less and less transparent as this happened, although the yellow of his outfit did darken a bit into a dull grey. Then the shadows around the room were gone, the air of the place felt noticeably lighter, and Wizardmon landed on the ground with a huff. "That, was a lot better than I expect-" he was cut off by Gatomon tackling him to the ground.

"You're not allowed to die again," she said just barely loud enough for Davis to hear.

\---

Kari was fairly sure she had stopped breathing at some point. This was like something out of a dream, and now she was just waiting for herself to wake up back in a world where the digimon who saved her was dead again. Gatomon was now openly crying, her brother was talking with a number of the TV studio's people about what exactly had happened, the two gods were being confusing, and the others were giving her sister space.

"Here," TyranoGazimon said pressing one of the capture balls the other world used into her hand. The weight of the item helped tell her this was real, but not as much as the patchwork digimon's claws moving roughly enough to scratch her a bit. Kari glared at the digimon for that, because she was fairly sure that was deliberate. "For your new pokemon."

She blinked at that statement, and then looked at her sister and Wizardmon again. "Thank you," Kari quietly admitted and walked over to see the two of them. "How are you feeling?" she asked both of them, unsure of who needed to be asked more.

"Alive," Wizardmon said roughly. "Or, more alive at least. I still feel a bit like I have the past..." He trailed off and looked haunted for a moment. "It's been years, hasn't it?"

"It has," Gatomon croaked. "I'm sorry."

"It has never been your fault, Gatomon," he kindly informed her. "It was Myotis- Myotismon!" He suddenly surged to his feet, with Gatomon actually falling through his body. "Ah, sorry." He quickly picked her up again. "Myotismon's ghost vanished! That's what I've been trying to get the energy to say this entire time."

The world slowed down as Kari processed what he meant by that. Suddenly she wished she had her BlackGatomon claws back and the damn vampire in front of her to shred. "He's trying to come back?" her brother squawked.

"I believe so. I can't recall everything while I was like that clearly," Wizardmon replied. "But, he was definitely stronger than I was like that. If you could do this for me, then I do not doubt that someone could have done the same for him."

"Possession is more likely," Giratina cut in. "That is the most common way that ghosts can interact with the world again, and given what I've heard of that foe, I doubt he would be truly hidden if he was fully restored already."

"So we're looking for someone controlled by Myotismon?" Matt asked darkly. While the new Digidestined all looked concerned by the revelation, they didn't seem to fully appreciate the situation. T.K. was visibly holding himself back from reacting.

"Or an item being inhabited by him," the ghost god clarified. "That could be worse actually, as if it is a person then all you need to do is help the person fight him off. With an item you can far more easily lose track of the spirit."

"I don't know if we can have me out and about searching for someone who’s possessed," Skarmory said slowly, looking more frightened by the presence of Giratina than anything else being discussed. "Especially if that might prompt a fight. I'm not really even supposed to fly anymore, let alone trying to get away after spotting whatever it’s in."

"We do know someone who might be able to help us with that kind of issue," the other, apparently digital, Giratina said. "Although I'd think if Jack was available we'd already have him working with us on this."

"I might be able to pass Skarmory off as some sort of exotic bird," Matt's father suggested uneasily. "He's a bit big for a bird, but not unthinkably large. The big issue is that he isn't quite shaped normally for a bird."

"Hiroaki, that might not last. Right now I'm a bit less than half my typical size, and the fact that I was steadily shrinking was the first sign we had that I was injured. Apparently my energy couldn't help maintain my physical form at normal Skarmory size," the metal bird admitted. "While I'm not sure that will change anytime soon, I should start growing back to normal at some point if this treatment works."

That fact made Kari pause, and even seemed to shock Gatomon out of her current unease over Wizardmon's revelation. "Wait, that would be about as tall as he is!" Davis noted uneasily.

"Yes? We are able to transport others with proper experience," the pokemon replied in confusion. "Carrying our trainers across the region is fairly common. Although I've heard that over in Galar there is an even larger armored bird that is so commonly trained for that they use them for easy taxi service."

"I don't think I could ride a giant bird around and not get noticed," Matt's father said shaking his head. "Was that all of the ghosts we had here? Because you kids probably want to get home."

"I cannot sense any others, at least close enough to be able to manifest in this building," Giratina answered him. "The new Ghost type should at some point be taken to the pokemon world for some proper training. He will need help to safely adapt to his new capabilities. I sense he also seems to have the Dark type, so perhaps you can try asking the Grim Gym for aid?"

"Davis, get everyone else home," Tai said taking charge. "I'm going to stick around a bit to make sure that we don't have any problems from doing this."

"We can keep a secret Mr. Yagami," the man her older brother had been talking to said, and it was strange to hear that professional tone directed at one of their group. "Especially since your group seems well prepared for this sort of thing. I'm not sure how we could have dealt with it without you, or what it would have cost." The guy looked nervous about something. "Already we had a group that was refusing to come up here because of these disturbances."

"Ah, I'm sorry for causing the issue," Wizardmon said regretfully.

\---

Tai sat down across from the main manager of the TV station in a small conference room. He was drained from the emotional nightmare that had just happened to his sisters, and despite that he had sent Agumon home with them instead of keeping his partner/brother on hand to help with the big issue. Which was figuring out how much trouble he had really gotten them into now in order to get Wizardmon back.

"Young man, I want to start by thanking you and your group for dealing with this issue so quickly," the older man said to start, and to Tai's surprise. "From the sound of things this 'ghost' problem was only going to get worse, and you gave us a controlled resolution with little disruption of operations before the day was out." The guy actually looked shocked. "When I first heard that we might actually have another monster issue I was sure it would be worse than this."

"I'm glad that it was a simple solution too," he admitted carefully, totally unprepared for outright praise. "Although, I have to admit I'm worried about everyone being seen here. We brought a full team just in case the ghost was hostile, so I don't think it was too many to bring, but well. We're not exactly officially a thing."

"You're worried about our reaction," the man more said than asked, but Tai nodded anyway. "Alright then, I'll give our full situation then. Back when the big monster attack happened the government didn't exactly miss the fact that the largest attack started here. We were questioned uphill and downhill about any information we had or any way we could have contained it. Because of course if we were where it started we should know what had happened."

"I'm guessing that Mr. Ishida working here didn't help with that," Tai noted unhappily as the manager paused for a moment.

"We didn't let them know about his involvement, or what little we did know because of him," the older man replied with a bit of a frown. "That didn't stop them from giving us a good chunk of the blame for that whole mess. So, part of the reason I agreed to try this was to try and get a head start on the next time something like that happened. It would be a lot easier to deal with them if we can say right off that we already went to the group that can handle those issues and gave them all the help we could afford to." The manager sighed and pulled over a nearby pad of paper. "So, given that we've basically heard that there is in fact a 'next time' coming up, what can we do to help?"

Tai had not expected that kind of response, and the fact that this confirmed that some of the government was looking into the issue was a problem on its own. Strangely though, he was actually prepared for that question. "Right now we need office space more than anything," he specified. "Not very much, but we're looking into getting something at least temporary setup so we could start working on getting our operations more stable." He sighed and met the older man's eyes. "Knowing that we have Myotismon to deal with again makes that much more important now."

The main manager apparently wasn't expecting an actual response, and Tai could see him shift for a moment as he apparently realized this was a fully serious discussion instead of just offering help to some kids that had helped. "What exactly are you after?" the older man asked. "We might be able to spare a bit of space, but I'd need to look into things to see how much."

"Bare minimum we could go with a place to setup a server and a conference room that we could use on short notice near it," Tai listed keeping his tone professional. "We might be able to teleport into that to avoid coming in your front door, and a bit more space that was just ours to use could help if it could be spared. We might need a cover story for why we are in the building just in case."

\---

Returning to the Kamiya apartment was an odd experience for Wizardmon. He did not want to admit it to Gatomon, but he was never under the impression that he would survive his trip to this world. So a chance to actually be inside the place they lived was already an unthinkable thing. Having a future to look forward to was an unthinkable thing.

"So, you're our daughter's best friend?" Susumu Kamiya asked him as Kari and the two digimon that lived there fixed up a place for him to stay.

"Ah, I'm afraid I don't actually know Kari that well," he admitted to the girl's father. While he had given his life to save her, it quite honestly was more to help Gatomon than any of his other reasons.

"I meant Gatomon actually," Susumu noted with a bit of a laugh. "She has mentioned you, although not very willingly," he then added more somberly.

"I had not realized you were at the point where you considered her a daughter," the former digimon noted. He tried not to sound too uncertain, and to not think too deeply about how much his death had hurt her.

The adult human looked like he had just stepped on a social landmine. "Oh, I guess nobody has had time to explain everything that's been happening to you," he said awkwardly. "It has turned out that Gatomon is some kind of digimon clone of Kari. Well, actually that all of the kids' digimon are copies of them."

"You're sure of that?" Wizardmon had to ask incredulously.

"They both spent a week switched around, Gatomon a human and Kari a digimon," he replied, then sighed. "She started as a 'Salamon', but then did something wrong?" he more asked than said, as if he wasn't sure if that was the right way to put it. "Anyway she ended up a BlackGatomon instead of just a normal one."

That was somehow more confusing than anything that had happened to him, and he had just been brought mostly back to life. Concerned about that he carefully studied the man's face, and it appeared that he was completely honest. "Ah, did Gatomon take that well?" he carefully asked. The last BlackGatomon he had seen was the right hand minion of Piedmon. He was fairly sure a major reason Myotismon had kept Gatomon around was to match the more powerful dark digimon.

"I did actually, and that's all they need to know about that issue," his friend cut in with annoyance that honestly made the mage digimon feel better. He had seen her broken up over things too much in his recent memory. "I have in fact specifically avoided that particular bit of information."

"I don't get why they changed the food," the family's cat then complained as she strode into the room. "Everything has felt off since they started giving me that." She was rather loud about it, and that rather thoroughly interrupted the conversation.

"I didn't realize she could talk," Wizardmon said with a bit of confusion.

"She's being a bit mouthy for some reason," Susumu noted a bit oddly.

"That's an odd way to say it," he replied confused. "She's saying that it is the new food after all." Which simply got everyone, including the pet cat to stare at him.

"How did he know that?" the animal asked as if he couldn't understand her. "Not like I'm actually talking."

"But, you are," he said directly to her, wishing he knew her name. "Right now you just asked how I knew what you said, and it's because you said it."

The cat looked horrified by this. "Wait, I'm talking? Like actually with words like people talking?" she asked with clear worry.

"I can't understand her," Gatomon noted, but with a thoughtful tone. "Wait, the new food? Oh, I really hope it isn't what it might be."

"Wait, what might it be? Am I sick? I know I'm old but," the cat said in a rush.

"The only creatures I've encountered so far that talk but I can't understand are pokemon," his old friend continued clearly not hearing what the other cat was saying. "And the new food is for pokemon..."

The implication was fairly clear, although. "So, what exactly is a pokemon?" Wizardmon asked, and then flinched at the dark glare Gatomon gave him for needing to do so.

"You agreed to become one, and you didn't really understand what they are?" she asked darkly, before with a sigh she began to explain what she knew. From the sounds of things he would now be accompanied to his pending medical checkup by 'Miko', which turned out to be the pet cat's name.


	88. 4-18 Base Building

\--- Base Building ---

"So, this is the place huh?" Tai asked looking over the rather plain and unnaturally basic looking office building that had clearly been partially modified to house a lot of people trying to live there. All of the Digidestined were present to look it over, with the exception of Mimi and Palmon who were both still on their trip to the pokemon world. Cody, Davis, and surprisingly enough Joe were all currently various kinds of monsters which was slightly odd to the leader of the group.

"One of the refugee digital worlds that DSS was setting up for the digimon," Izzy confirmed with a sigh. "They're giving it to us and helping us set it up somewhere safe in our world. Do you think the TV station is really a good place for that?"

"My dad is usually there when anything would happen to it, and with how badly he wants something to do to help he might end up basically guarding it while he's at work," Matt replied with a sigh of his own. "I don't suppose we could bring my band in on this?" he asked at least half jokingly. "They want to know why I said I might have issues making practice, and maybe having somewhere in this place to do that would help make up for this whole mess."

"If we're making suggestions, can I ask for a pool?" Joe asked in a tone that the group usually heard from Gomamon, who looked simply tired instead of worried about his brother's joke. The younger kids along with Sora all seemed used to this, and also with the oldest Digidestined's current otter like form, so Tai was fairly sure this had become typical. He had no idea what to do with a monster version of Joe being typical. "If this is my life now I at least want somewhere to relax when I'm not learning about how to deal with alien diseases we now just might catch," he added at the looks that his question earned him, the strange yellow part of his body inflating a bit.

"Do you mean digimon diseases, or pokemon diseases?" Davis asked, scratching the back of his head with the metal claws of his Flamedramon form. Tai was honestly a bit impressed with that question, as at this point both of those were represented by Digidestined he felt should be human. Which was Joe and Davis actually, as he was not counting Cody among the 'should be' group, as the kid apparently wasn't human to start with.

Although Joe looked incredibly disappointed by that question. "Well, now I have to do both," the otter like Digidestined complained more typically as his yellow body part entirely deflated.

"Anyway, this place should work fine," Izzy said to get the discussion back on track. "It will take me a bit to get everything I need up and running, and even longer for everything I want on top of that, but we should have our own base of operations by the end of the week."

"That should help with things going forward. It will be a lot easier to be taken seriously with our own place," Tai informed the group. "Unfortunately we need to work on the next issue, the war in the digital world," he added tiredly. "Our first priority, before anything else now, is to find out if either side is working for or with Myotismon."

"Gazimon is our best bet there," Gatomon said bluntly. "He's been working on the Dark Network longer than I've been alive, if there is anyone left who would know what Myotismon's devices look like it is him."

"If it is particularly closely connected to Myotismon I might be able to sense it," Wizardmon added, earning himself an unhappy glare from both of Tai's sisters. "I still need training to use all of my... new powers, but I had focused a lot on his nature to try and tell you about this problem in the first place." The fact that the revived digimon was still a ghost, just a sort of living one, was something that all of them were trying to avoid thinking about.

"We have found a target to take them to," Tai agreed with his digimon sister. "One of the Emperor's smaller factories. It isn't one where he's working on those artificial digimon right now, but it also isn't one of his new ones. That means the place shouldn't be too heavily defended." He looked specifically at Davis, and hoped that the younger boy was up for this kind of fight. "We want to clear out the Emperor's forces, including the Control Spire, and then while we're evacuating any of the digimon he enslaved Gazimon and A-0 will go over the base. Then when we're done with that we destroy the place."

Yolei looked a little intimidated by his speech, while Cody and the older Digidestined simply took the idea seriously. "Are we going to see if we can use anything he has there?" Davis asked with a thoughtful look on his muzzle. "If we can make use of the stuff Upload is making, maybe there is some of the Emperor's that can be useful too."

That was a good point, but Tai didn't know the answer, so he turned to Izzy. "You would need to hold the place longer for me to go over what they have, and I'd need to go myself," the team's tech expert said seriously. "I don't know what exactly the Emperor has there, probably just Control Spire and Dark Ring production. I don't know what we could do with those, but the Dark Rings are being used to avoid the negative effects of the Spires." The young genius started to mumble, but that was enough information for Tai.

"It's up to you Davis, if you can handle the extra time then go ahead," he told the young leader.

Who made him proud by taking a moment to think, and then asking. "What do you guys think, can we handle holding the Emperor off for a while?"

"I'm going to end up a digimon the whole time, aren't I?" Yolei asked, and Tai had to keep his expression neutral about how she seemed to think that was the situation so quickly. "Fine, if I'm going to be a bug anyway might as well make it a full day."

"We might have some things our mom wants us to try out as Digmon," Cody said while looking at his brother, and it was still odd to see someone who looked so much like their partner that it was easy to forget which was which. "Making walls and other ways of altering the terrain. Having somewhere to defend for a while would give us a chance." Everyone got fairly quiet at that casual declaration of earthmoving, as if it was just something to do to pass the time. It had become fairly common to hear from the inhabitants of the pokemon world, and that only made one of their group saying it more unnerving.

"I think we're fine with staying a bit longer for that," T.K. agreed then turned to look at the Flamedramon. "Good idea Davis."

\---

"Well well well," a dark voice rumbled soon after they had managed to reach the site of the base. The large dark structures were surrounded by enslaved digimon, raw materials taken from the digital world, and partially completed Control Spires. At the far edge of the clearing was a massive black scaled harsh looking Tyranomon. She had a more complex Dark Ring around her neck, and behind her following closely was a good sized force of the Emperor's new artificial digimon. "Looks like we do have some attackers." She chuckled darkly. "I'll give you Digidestined a choice, leave now and focus on the damn crystals, and I won't have to destroy you all."

"Yeah right, sure, we'll just roll over and let you enslave the digimon world," Yolei shot back from the air above the battlefield. She then dived down to help the others with the enslaved digimon by slashing through their Dark Rings.

"Careful," the group's white furred Nefertimon cautioned the group. "I recognize her, and she wasn't a slacker when it came to fighting."

The black coated mirror of the sphinx digimon shot a glance at the newly arrived enemies. "So we need to take out that Dark Ring?" Kari asked in a way that was almost an order.

That turned out to be easier said than done, as between moving the enslaved digimon out of the way, destroying the black featureless digimon, and keeping away from the overwhelmingly powerful slashes and fireballs of the Dark Tyranomon they could barely focus on the oversized device. 

The Flamedramon and Pegasusmon were all focused on removing the easier to hit Dark Rings of the factory workers. Davis and Davey were intercepting any stray attacks that got close to the freed ones, and moving them to a sheltered location behind one of the buildings. T.K. and his digimon brother were taking advantage of the wide area of their attacks to hit multiple rings at once in order to clear that threat faster.

The Hida brothers started their action by dropping the ground out from under a large part of the artificial digimon. From there they began to shatter them as fast as they could, dropping more in as the pit emptied. This worked for the most part, as the simpleminded creatures clearly found something attacking them directly to be the best threat to take on themselves.

That left the girls of the team, Hawk, and the snake twins to try and deal with Dark Tyranomon. The Grass types were focused on attempting to entangle the dinosaur digimon, but she was proving a bit more capable than usual at breaking free of their strong vines. The Kamiya girls were mostly just trying to make the enemy digimon move in a way that would leave the Dark Ring open for attack. Yolei was darting in and out of melee range with Dark Tyranomon, making what were so far ineffective slashes at the device.

Halsemon had been both helping to two Nefertimon try and pin down their foe, and trying to get a shot at the Ring when his sister wasn't in the way, but after his third pass he huffed with annoyance. "I'm going to try taking down the Spire, maybe that will be enough," he informed the group and made his way to the last of what had been a small collection of fully assembled towers. They had managed to destroy most of them before these enemies had arrived, but it had seemed like too many artificial enemies to risk it after Dark Tyranomon's demand.

He then proceeded to blast the base of the tower with beams of energy, which in the short term had the effect of making things harder for Davis' group as they now had a collection of entirely freed digimon all breaking for cover without any organization. Dark Tyranomon, however, if anything just looked annoyed at the destruction. "Try the Ring," T.K. shouted a bit unhappily. "Maybe hers can work without a Spire."

Yolei was motivated enough by that plan's failure to risk a quick strike on the ring using her stinger directly. This cracked the hardened band, but didn't destroy it outright. "Damn, there are tough ones now?" she complained, then darted out of the way of a claw that interrupted her second attempt. Her third was a success, and she smugly flew away to a short distance to see the effect.

"Hmph, you're all just breaking all of my stuff now," Dark Tyranomon complained, although she had been more and more focused on Gatomon's armor form. "But that's not enough to put me out of the fight."

"So, you're actually just working for the bad guys again," the team's white Nefertimon said with disappointment.

"And you are Gatomon," the digital dinosaur replied with a serious tone that had been missing from her previous statements. "Tell me then, where is my brother?" she raged. "Why should I listen to his killers?" their enemy roared.

"Myotismon killed him!" Gatomon shot back. While this explained the situation a bit better to the older Digidestined, it only served to further confuse the new team and their pokemon world allies.

"Ah, so you finally did betray Myotismon," Dark Tyranomon rumbled, suddenly sounding thoughtful, but at the same time the mighty digimon swept her tail to try and hit Serperior and Yolei in a wide movement. "I should have known you'd lead him to death," she said, then vanished in a black flash that somewhat resembled the Upload method of retreat. This left the battlefield silent for a moment, as the team's two Digmon had just finished taking out the Emperor's artificial digimon before the leader of the enemies vanished.

The white Nefertimon's eyes were left wide and horrified, and her sister quickly moved closer to check on the digimon. "Gato?" Kari asked quietly.

"We should make sure the place is safe," the other sphinx digimon said in a bit of a daze. "Just in case she comes back with reinforcements."

\---

"Boss man! What the hell was that?" Dark Tyranomon roared as she suddenly found herself back at base.

"The Digidestined had taken out all of the constructs and cleared the slaves," the Digimon Emperor replied with calm reassurance that just made her more angry. "They would have been able to focus on you with all of their forces."

"I know how strong I am, Emperor," she spat at him. "I'd have a good chance against an Ultimate if you needed one beat." Her eyes drifted to the doorway to the 'advisors' chambers. "They didn't have enough strength to take me down."

"But they did have enough to possibly injure you," Wormmon cut in with a bland tone she recognized as angry. "And we can not afford to lose you, even for just a couple of days."

"The facility they were attacking was far less valuable than you are," the Emperor confirmed, and it was the closest he had gotten to saying he cared yet. Dark Tyranomon was actually a little impressed, as that was a good effort for a leader of the dark forces. "I will need to further refine this recovery program quite a bit to ensure your value is not lost in future battles. Scans of the Hacker's method are proving insufficient."

"Next time, warn me that you will be pulling me out before sending me to a place," she complained, but simply in a huff instead of another roar.

"That is the other reason I recovered you," the Emperor said grandly, but with that slightly distant look that reminded her of her brother before a fight. "I need more examples of the Hacker's devices, and the constructs you used this time were adequate for deployment. We have another force ready to go and a target near our new force's construction site that should be simple enough to reach today."

Dark Tyranomon shook her head with a grim smile. "Boss man, if you had a different place you want me to attack more, you just needed to tell me," she rumbled.

\---

"We probably could have stripped the place and found a use for all of the stuff we got at some point," Gazimon said to Izzy as the two of them worked on the recovered main computer of the factory inside the Digidestined's new base. It was decided that extracting the key components instead of checking things while at the location was safer with the threat of new enemies showing up with their more vulnerable research members on the ground.

"Yeah, but I'm not sure we have time to check all of it to make sure that's safe," the Digidestined of Knowledge noted. "How's the check for any hint of Myotismon going?"

"Well, now that I know he's still an option I can say that it is his work, although we did meet a former minion of his too so that might throw it off," the rabbit monster replied with a grim chuckle. "Still, I think enough of the towers look like his personal work that we can confirm that the Emperor is just another of his pawns." The digimon frowned and huffed. "Although, it does look like someone higher up the totem pole might be in the game now. They sent some of the construction information for those artificial digimon, and it is barely anything like the stuff the Emperor is using."

"They are definitely an active project, while the Emperor's gear so far has been clearly made for him by someone else," A-0 added as it looked over the single complete assembly line they decided to recover. "Lots of available options, but he's only set up to use a subset of them, while these new monsters are purpose made, but not fine tuned for their current goal."

"They were made from something else that was better," Gazimon corrected the Porygon-2. "I can see signs of how these construct digimon were supposed to be created, and it was a handcrafted sort of thing. I've had to try and do this kind of thing quite a bit, mostly when someone who was really good at getting some impressive thing done fast got themselves killed, and we needed to keep making new ones to keep the boss happy." He chuckled. "Actually, that was kind of what we did for all of the stuff Datamon made himself. Surprisingly enough for a guy who loved having machines to do things he was too much of a hands on mon to just automate the useful stuff." This anecdote led to a more in depth discussion of what their construct enemies' original form might have been based on the digimon's experience and the available construction equipment.

This was what Tai and Yolei found when the leader of the Digidestined finished listening to the younger kid's explanation of the battle's events. "So, is there a reason you're still a digimon?" he asked the Flybeemon to get that conversation out of the way before dealing with the technological mess ahead of them.

"I don't want to have to change back and forth if they are tracking this stuff somehow," the younger Digidestined complained. "They were teleporting after all, and the worst part of changing is right after you turn back and realize all the odd stuff you did." She shrugged. "I might as well avoid freaking out about spending most of the afternoon as a bug until we know we're done with fighting."

"You know, you new kids might not have to deal with some of the survival problems we had before, but I have to admit we never had to consider what species we wanted to be," Tai admitted shaking his head. "Not to mention we always had the hope that things would get back to normal if we just managed to finally defeat enough bad guys."

Yolei scratched her head nervously at that, producing a sharp screeching sound from her metal claws on her armored head. "My older brother actually asked me about changing into a digimon," she quietly said. "Our dad is getting another of these DSS digital worlds for us to use as a warehouse, and Mantarou ended up in charge of it. He's not sure if being a digimon would help with that or not, and I don't know what to tell him."

"I don't really see how being a digimon would help with that," the Digidestined of Courage said dubiously. "I mean, we already got super strength from this mess when we're human. There isn't really anything else that you can do like that for moving stuff around."

"I know, but I think he's using it as an excuse to try this out," Yolei said pointing at herself. "So I'm trying to get a good enough handle to just tell him about being like this instead. Although given how my other brother doesn't want to be human again ever, and I'm the only one of us new kids who doesn't like being a monster better I'm not sure it will work." She looked away from him thoughtfully as they finally reached earshot of the trio of tech heads. "Maybe Davey would be able to help."

Tai turned back to the captured equipment and let her think about that on her own, having realized that his attempt to distract himself from whatever bad news his tech guy was going to give him had somehow resulted in a conversation he wanted to deal with even less. "Hey Izzy, how's it going?" he asked hopefully.

"We've confirmed that Myotismon is somehow behind the Digimon Emperor," the boy genius dryly replied.

"The good news is that I have some things I might be able to do for the new kids now that you've got this stuff," Gazimon added thoughtfully. "For one thing I think I can re-create the control systems so they can hijack his Dark Rings."

"I don't think we want to enslave the digimon ourselves," Yolei harshly countered.

"I can set it to just release their minds by default, basically make it disable that part of them whenever you get close," the rabbit monster clarified, and then looked darkly at the machines. "Also, I think there is one digimon we know of now that you would like to make get rid of her own Ring. I should be able to add a control so you can try and take that Dark Tyranomon over if we see her again."

\---

Gatomon was still sitting awake when Wizardmon quietly floated past well after dark. Admittedly he was also awake, but he was dealing with the fact that his new nature seemed to like the dark of the night much more than daylight, and so he had to work to not end up nocturnal. "Shouldn't you be getting some sleep?" he asked in a slightly joking tone, and expecting to hear the same question thrown back at him by his old friend.

"Should we have tried to get the others on our side against Myotismon?" she asked instead, far too quietly as she curled in on herself.

"The digimon you found for him?" the Ghost typed former digimon asked, remembering that she had faced the rather dangerous sister of one of those digimon today.

Gatomon nodded. "Dark Tyranomon thought I'd turned her brother against Myotismon, and that's why he died," she said in the same quiet tone. "And now I can't help but wonder if we should have tried that. Those digimon were only in this world because of me, and..." She trailed off looking at him brokenly.

"And none of us that died here were able to reincarnate normally for digimon," Wizardmon admitted reluctantly. "Gatomon, I hate to say it, but you didn't exactly pick the nicest digimon."

"I picked you," she countered. "I picked that Dark Tyranomon, and whenever he wasn't under Myotismon's control he was a lot nicer than his sister."

"Gatomon, I followed you," the mage monster said sharply. "I, I might have done things to protect Kari and the other Digidestined, but I did them because that would help you. We both know that my motives were some of the better ones of that group."

"I thought of some of them as cannon fodder," Gatomon said more to herself than him. "Extra bodies to get in the way while the bigger ones actually fought our enemies." She finally looked at him. "And, you haven't mentioned trying to bring any of them back. Like we did with you."

"I still need more lessons on being a Ghost, Gatomon," Wizardmon said with a depressed tone of his own. "But the big problem there is we would need to find them, if there was even enough of them left to find. It took years for me to get to the point where I was annoying people every few weeks, and that was because I was motivated by Myotismon's stronger spirit."

They were quiet for a time, deep in thought about what could have been.

"I just wish we'd had more time back then," the cat monster said as she finally uncurled. "I keep thinking of how we could have done it differently, and there just wasn't any time for me to track any of them down." She shook her head. "But that doesn't help me sleep any."

"I'm afraid that I am specifically forbidden from trying to hypnotize you to sleep until I'm better trained," the new Ghost sighed.

"We actually tried that before, didn't we?" Gatomon asked fondly.

"It made your nightmares worse," Wizardmon grumbled and made to float off. "Come on, let's both try the normal way again."

"Maybe try the pokeballs?" his friend suggested as she joined him. "I haven't tried one yet, but Agumon says they work pretty well. At least, he said his isn't as cramped as the bed Tai got him."


	89. 4-19 Gym Class

\--- Gym Class ---

"Alright everyone, we're going to the Grim Gym today," Shawn said to everyone as they collected themselves, with multiple reactions. Miko had sat down in the large room the moment the Digidestined's group appeared inside of it, the least comfortable of the assembled group with the act of teleportation. Wizardmon was simply staring a bit blankly at the red eyed maybe-human, while Gatomon stuck close to her old friend. Kari was watching over both them and Miko rather closely. Cody and Armadillomon were both looking somewhat eager for the event. Davis and Davey on the other hand looked more thoughtful then simply enthusiastic. T.K. and Patamon both looked faintly annoyed, the only ones reacting outright badly to the planned trip. Finally Yolei and Hawkmon had deliberately neutral expressions, both of them clearly wanting to have the benefits of this endeavor more than having to actually go through with it.

This was a tight fit for the Troubleshooter Lab, and Davey the Veemon ended up a bit close to the still nervous formerly normal cat. Uneasy with being in close proximity to these monsters Miko took a swipe at the tiny lizardmon, and surprised everyone by producing small slashes of energy as she did so. "Yikes! What was that?" Miko asked, and the translation device in the middle of the room dutifully repeated her words for everyone else's benefit. "That thing just talked." The translator dutifully responded again. "And it did it... That's what I'm saying, isn't it?" she asked still clearly not used to being able to speak at all.

"Your attack just now would be the first reason you are all here, you and the mage both need to learn to control your new abilities," A-0 complained, then turned from the console it was working at to look at the group. "The second is apparently we are dealing with your worst case scenario, and you all need to improve your combat ability quickly."

"I have to worry about getting in trouble for shredding stuff again, don't I?" the formerly mundane cat complained. "That was terrible, almost as bad as being chased across the city by monsters." This was directed at Gatomon.

"I don't remember being the one who had you steal Kari's Digivice," Gatomon countered the other cat.

"I think we might not want to get in a cat fight right now," Kari stopped the two of them. "So is this Gym Wizardmon and Miko's best option for learning about being a pokemon?" she asked Shawn with a hint of an edge.

"Yes, they need to learn to use types that I am not an expert on, and Quagsire isn't an expert on them either, so we don't have any trainers we can use to teach them," the red eyed trainer answered firmly. "Wizardmon is Dark/Ghost typed, which means that the Grim Gym is his best option. Miko is a Normal type, which they don't specifically cover, but since that is the most common type anyone could give some help on it. She might be someone we could help, but if you're already taking him to the Gym you might as well take her too."

"The next closest Gym would be over in our home town, and the only one of your group that might have been a Grass type is already on her way there," Serperior added with a bit of an unhappy tone. "Of course the two of us also aren't really ready to see our family right yet."

"I'm still not sure if they are literally brothers or not," Davis mumbled, earning a glare from the snake twins and smothered laughter from the rest of the DSS staff.

"Are you sure we can't go there instead?" T.K. asked uneasily. "I'm not too sure about going to see some 'Dark' teacher."

"Dendro just got a new Gym Leader last year," Janice said shaking her head. "Even if Shawn did know them they are in the time period after their first League. That's generally a rough time when they will be spending a bunch of time going over how they did during it. Grim at least has a full team of teaching trainers on hand and ready to go with helping us, he's been preparing for this since we learned of your issue."

"Yeah, well. I really don't want to see my mom about our issues, so not visiting the Dendro Gym Leader is probably best," Shawn admitted.

"Shawn, are you saying that your mom is the new Grass type Gym leader?" A-0 asked bluntly. Then it blinked and asked a bit more harshly. "Also, since things have gone weird I have to ask, your human mom or Serperior's mom?"

"Serperior's mom was the main pokemon of the previous Gym Leader," Janice sighed. "Shawn's complained about that keeping him from being able to challenge that Gym during his run before. I think she's finally retired now."

The Grass type trainer and starter both looked at each other uneasily, then cringed. "We do not want to find out," they said together. "She's still on the Gym team, so we're kind of worried that she is the one who is actually the new Leader, and just needed someone human to look like they were in charge."

"Shawn, please don't confuse the kids about which one of them is your actual mom," the Team Lead complained. "Once in a while it is funny, but this is a bit too far. We all know how much you two focus on not actually being related."

"We are reasonably sure the two of them are probably separate people," the pair quietly said in a way that sounded as if they didn't want to admit what they were saying.

"There were too many qualifiers on that statement," A-0 said quietly. "Right, so let's go back to the topic that doesn't fill me with unease. We are going with the Dark Gym because it is ready for us. Don't worry too much about the type, you are all going to be working on general combat, and that means that they are going to be training in how to use the Dark type against you more than you all learning that type yourselves."

Most of the Digidestined cringed at how the Porygon-2 had put that, with T.K. and Patamon taking that news the worst.

\---

The Dark type Gym was a curious place for the Digidestined to find themselves in, Shawn had mentioned to them on the way to the building that in the off season Gyms focused more on practical training to teach the type to students. Ones that would either go for the next year's League, or were going to be using a new pokemon of the relevant type for their work. This meant that they were neither the only ones that already had their monsters, nor the youngest kids there to learn to train for battle with or against Dark types. There actually ended up being a large enough crowd their group was outnumbered by the locals here, even if the others there hopefully had a bit less serious of a reason to be there. There were only a couple of older kids that had their own monsters out, but since most of the younger ones were quietly discussing what they wanted for a 'Starter' that might have just been all of the people who had their monsters already.

The mood of the group had not changed too much so far from when they arrived in the pokemon world. Kari, Gatomon, Wizardmon, and Miko were the ones with the most reason to be there, and were curiously looking over the place in preparation. The three new Digidestined and their digimon were overall fairly eager to get a chance to learn to fight safely against other people instead of just themselves. Which left T.K. and Patamon to actually look at the place they were at and determine what exactly they were going to be taught here. An activity that was doing little to improve the Digidestined of Hope's already bad mood.

"They're not even hiding that this is the evil 'type' are they?" Patamon quietly complained about the guide books and pamphlets that had been in a small display at one end of the building. These were a mixture of short free to take ones about the most general details, to fairly expensive training guides that T.K. was fairly sure actually just taught the lesson 'be careful what you spend money on'. The advertized refund policy was better than he expected, but given this was actually a place to teach that probably just meant they were a bit more obvious about that particular lesson.

He had read a few of the pamphlets in the time they ended up waiting before passing them to Patamon, an action that actually wasn't unusual for the overall group of Digidestined or the locals. These covered the common behaviors of Dark type pokemon, and the 'moves' that many pokemon could learn that were of the type. The idea that pokemon learned ways of using attacks that weren't directly related to how they were shaped seemed a bit odd to T.K., but he wasn't sure how much of that was it actually being unusual and how much was his experience being a digimon. Dark type moves specifically were quite frankly just fighting dirty or using evil powers. Mostly fighting dirty like what Cody's mom had suggested to Kari when they were training as digimon on their own, but some of them noted the heavy use of dark powers.

The room had some other people besides new students on the far end of it from their group, apparently the trainer experts for the Dark type that worked under the Gym's leader to help with teaching. They were quietly joking about something, and occasionally trading money or other small items for some reason. Behind the group of students on the opposite side of the room Shawn and Serperior were sitting to watch and see how things went, clearly not trusting this Gym Leader. The snake monster was even notably melted into more of a lumpy puddle than a reptile, which the serpent seemed to be doing just to unnerve the other locals.

It was crowded, it was clearly Dark with a capital 'D', and T.K. was only really here because Kari needed help with her newly resurrected and transformed pokemon. So, when the overeager group around him once again got lost in talking about how awesome it would be to crush their enemies with these moves he finally lost it. "This isn't some kind of game!" he shouted at them. "These are cruel and harsh creatures that will use you if you aren't careful with what you let them get away with."

A cheerful laugh interrupted any more ranting. "Now that's a reassuring thing to hear from some new arrivals," a new older man said from the doorway to the large arena. Behind him was a large black dog covered in harsh exposed bones. "Pay attention to that one kids, Dark types are the pokemon who are the most likely to hurt people and pokemon you care about if you don't treat them right."

"Leader Grim," Shawn greeted the new arrival. "These are the Digidestined, they're here for a couple of reasons. I'm sure you've read what we sent about them." The trainer motioned to their group as if T.K. hadn't just yelled against this guy's profession, but didn't lose any of his unhappy mood.

"Of course," the Gym Leader agreed ignoring the clear dislike. "We have a room set aside for going over the basics for the two young pokemon, Lacey will be covering getting them started. For the rest I was just going to have them work with the new kids here for a bit. Mostly for our prospective trainers' benefit, a few experienced combatants that aren't Dark types would help us get across some things." Then Grim looked directly at T.K. and pointed, which did not help his mood with what was happening at all. "Now though I want to handle this kid myself."

"Handle me how exactly?" T.K. asked cautiously, and he felt Patamon shift on his hat at that declaration.

"You clearly have the basics down, which means the main thing you need help with is the tougher stuff I'd need to personally work with you on," the Gym Leader said clearly not leaving room for argument.

T.K. looked back at Shawn, and strangely found the trainer he was familiar with looking thoughtful. "You probably should take advantage of this," the snake eyed older kid said, even though he sounded like he didn't like the idea. "I'm not as experienced with teaching people, and Grim knows his stuff." Serperior shifted, an action that was honestly a lot more frightening while he was more slop than snake. "And given your team has at least one Dark type on it already you probably need some experience working with them."

T.K. was not about to compare Wizardmon to the digimon he was really mad at, but as he thought about that he realized that Shawn probably also meant Kari as well. So far they had already seen that her Nefertimon form was clearly affected by her being a BlackGatomon for a while, and it was likely that she'd be a dark digimon again when they had the option to just change into digimon. She had already mentioned that someone who was Champion by default would help. He looked over his teammates, and found that the new kids were actually looking at him with a bit of worry, although Kari looked sympathetic. "Alright," he reluctantly agreed.

\---

Wizardmon cringed as T.K. left the room with the owner of this battle school. "I really hate how he isn't really wrong," the former digimon said.

"Theatrics aside, that was actually the plan this entire time. At least him going with Grim on his own," Shawn complained more than explained. "T.K. honestly has the most combat experience out of your group, and that means he needs a bit more help than the rest of you. Bad habits and methods are worse to deal with when they've kept you alive before."

"Yeah, but I was hoping that would go better," Kari agreed, sounding like she was in on this plan. "I didn't think he had that big of a problem with dark monsters." She looked particularly unhappy with that, and it took a moment for Wizardmon to remember that she had become a BlackGatomon somehow. The girl seemed far too cheerful for that shape, or at least too cheerful about things that didn't hurt others.

"Yikes," Davis said about the whole event. "Well now I can at least tell he never took me seriously, and I definitely don't want that pointed at me." The younger leader of the group was fairly competent with what he did as far as Wizardmon had seen, which made the way he doubted himself a bit annoying.

"I don't want that pointed at anyone," Yolei said sadly. "I hate to ask, but how bad did it really get for you guys?" The other girl of the team seemed a bit flighty so far, which gave the new Ghost pokemon an odd feeling that he couldn't remember having before. Like he wanted to take advantage of her state to scare her for some reason. Just the thought made his lips tug into a smile, and he quickly smothered the emotion before he actually tried something.

"Unfortunately, that starts with Devimon and only gets worse from there," Gatomon said sadly. "He also got a personal 'play date' with Puppetmon. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he learned to fight without evolving to make up for that."

"Uh, okay, how literal is the talking cat pokemon being?" one of the nearby local kids asked.

"It's an option," Shawn calmly replied, then suddenly the probably-not-a-human had a glowing blade of grass in his hand. "Although, humans can't do it as well as pokemon most of the time, so probably not worth the effort."

"For the record, my trainer is not entirely human anymore. He is not an example of what is normal," Serperior complained, which apparently did not help explain to anyone, even the people from this world.

\---

T.K. followed Mr. Grim out into the arena area quietly, still upset over what had just happened. Mostly with himself, but there were still the people with dreams of teaming up with evil monsters in the room behind him and a man that taught them how in front. He could feel Patamon holding on in a way that meant that his little brother was ready for a fight.

"First things first," the Gym Leader said picking up a pokeball from a tray. Then he held it out and white energy emerged to form a good sized monster. The creature had dark fur that was vaguely blue grey, and a tail of red feathers. One of its ears appeared to have either been replaced by another feather like structure, or just drastically different in color and shape than its other ear. Each of its four limbs ended in a pair of claws, and it stood upright on its legs like a human.

The creature looked at T.K. smugly, and then the Digidestined had to react quickly to catch the thrown sphere. The pokemon now looked shocked, while T.K. simply frowned at the device. "This is Sneasel," Grim continued. "Your new pokemon."

"He already has a partner," Patamon cut in, and the newly named Sneasel glared at the digimon.

"Yeah, he does, but you don't need to be as experienced as I am to tell that he came too close to losing you at least once," Grim replied strongly. "That's part of why one mon acts are frowned upon, no backup in case things go wrong."

"We're used to fighting with teammates," T.K. countered, not liking the man's tone.

"True, but nobody reacts like you did unless they've seen just how dangerous the Dark can be," the older man allowed a bit too easily. "Which is the biggest problem I see here." The dog monster was still next to Grim, and sat down now. "You're the kind of person who’s found enough light to push back the darkness, to fight the terrible things that don't particularly want other creatures to survive. A beacon of hope for others." The Gym Leader didn't sound like he knew about T.K.'s Crest, but apparently Shawn's team had mentioned something of what had happened to the Digidestined to the guy. "Unfortunately, having that bright of a light in you can wash out your own shadows."

"That sounds nice an all but what does it have to do with him having another monster?" Patamon questioned as he flapped down to glare at Sneasel from eye level.

"If you saw a monster of the same species as the ones that hurt you before, what would be your first reaction?" Grim asked a bit more bluntly than he had spoken so far.

The first thought that came to the Digidestined of Hope's mind wasn't any of the major enemies he'd faced, but DemiDevimon, who had looked a little like them but seemed nice enough to start. "I wouldn't trust them," he admitted, aware enough that the small ball of evil had ruined that innocence.

Grim watched him for a moment, then nodded. "A bit better than I was expecting, but you're not looking at Sneasel," the man said, and T.K. reluctantly looked up to inspect the pokemon. Sneasel didn't really look all that evil, and he'd seen worse glares before. A thought that unfortunately led him to looking at the way Patamon was the one glaring back, and the earlier reminder of the ball of evil came back harshly. "Yeah, that right there is the danger of too much light. You can end up disliking the darkness so much that you hurt others for having some. Everyone has darkness kid, your problem is that it is a part of what you use to fuel your battle for the light. So, here is a bit of darkness for you to work with instead of just next to, someone that depends on you accepting and managing their smaller evils."

T.K. blinked at that last sentence. Then really considered how many evil digimon they had even attempted to leave alive before. The new kids hadn't had to kill any normal digimon yet, and they sort of hoped they never would have to do that, but he hadn't really thought about what having done so had done to him directly. He looked over Sneasel again, and tried to think of Ogremon instead of DemiDevimon, which was not helped by the pokemon now giving a sneer that matched the smaller evil digimon's worst.

He hadn't been the one to try and save Ogremon, or even with Mimi's group when they did it. It had been a thing that happened, and suddenly he wasn't sure that he actually could try and reform an enemy instead of just dealing with them finally. Dark Tyranomon, their newest normal digimon foe had roared at them about how they had killed her brother. Gatomon said they didn't, but again it had been Mimi to try and save that digimon, not anyone else on the team.

The best he could say about how he dealt with evil digimon that weren't trying to kill them was that he didn't fight a pair of digimon that honestly hadn't even seemed very evil at all at the time. "Alright, so you want me to work with this pokemon in order to learn how to have someone who uses darkness around me all the time?" he asked, getting a familiar glare from Patamon, and a smug look from Sneasel. It was another bad reminder of DemiDevimon that he didn't like.

"That's the plan," Grim agreed, far too happy with having put T.K. through that thought process. "I understand that you aren't exactly in a position to take a fresh pokemon out into proper combat right now, but this is mostly so you can work out the difference between darkness used for evil, and darkness that is someone's nature." The Gym Leader shook his head. "It also gets Sneasel here a trainer. I usually give out his species as one of my Starter picks, but this one is a bit too headstrong for a typical new trainer. You know that you need to watch what he does, and that means you'll be a better fit."

"So, what now, we fight each other?" T.K. asked as what was apparently his new pokemon walked closer confidently.

"With a pokemon you just got that you don't trust at all? No way," Grim criticized. "Now we go over a number of things he will try and do, and you get a test on how you should react to them."

\---

Kari looked over the room her little team of monsters had been taken to with some trepidation. The walls were quite a bit thicker than the rest of the building, not to mention they seemed to have gone underground at one point during their trip. "This room was made for any particularly powerful pokemon a trainer gets to have some space to try out what they can do before attempting it in battle," Lacey told them seriously. "That's extra important for strong Dark types because they tend to push boundaries when they get that dangerous, or worse strong wild captures can be less trained in holding back. Most Gyms would have somewhere to do this, but given how our moves also tend to be tricky the extra sensor systems embedded in the walls help get accurate readings even if the pokemon fudges their effectiveness." The older teen then looked a bit embarrassed as she caught sight of some exposed wires in one wall where something had cut it deeply. "We kind of have to spend a good amount on replacements for those already, so don't worry too much if you accidentally take them out."

"So, how strong was that one there?" Gatomon asked about the damage.

"David's Hydreigon was trying to stay in shape," Lacey noted a bit dryly. "Which for her means retraining on how to hold back. For reference when that Gazimon of Shawn's pissed her off she dug trenches as wide as the hallway outside and deeper than you are tall trying to take him out," the trainer explained to the digimon. Kari cringed at the thought of that much power being directed at such a vulnerable digimon.

"'Trying'? She did that at a Gazimon and it was only 'trying' to take him out?" Wizardmon asked a bit faintly.

"Yeah? The talking rabbit beat her after all," their guide noted as if that could possibly be a normal thing to say. "He's a tricky one, so probably not a good option for you to start training against."

"If that's the kind of power that being a pokemon gets you then I might actually consider it," Gatomon said, but Kari could tell her partner was more worried than serious. "So, is Miko starting out first just in case Wizardmon breaks this stuff?"

"Well, she's the one without any previous combat experience right?" Lacey asked, getting four nods from the group. "Then we should start with him instead. Working out the very basics is a lot harder, and honestly someone who knows what they could do before is a lot more dangerous after this kind of change. Evolution can be like that, where a pokemon suddenly finds their old abilities hitting far harder."

"Ah, well, my previous method of combat was mostly to, well, alter the universe's fundamental properties to cause a given effect," Wizardmon admitted nervously, and Kari noted that Gatomon looked both surprised and intimidated by this admission. "It is an extremely rare skill in the world Gatomon and I came from."

"Uh," Lacey said as she clearly spent a moment translating the explanation. "Isn't that how most moves work?" She shook her head. "No wait, you look like a magic user, so you must mean the tricky stuff. Yeah, that sounds like the exact reason we're going with your stuff first. Start with the smaller stuff, and work your way up. Goal is to figure out if it still works the same for you. Worst case we might need to find a mage to help teach you."

\---

Davis surged to the side, but was still clipped heavily by the glowing green blade. Shawn's hit sent him tumbling as his armor just barely took it, and he groaned from the floor where he landed. "Shawn, how much stronger is Serperior than you?" he asked unhappily. "Because if it is a lot, then I'm starting to wonder why you need us around in the digimon world."

"Mostly we're backup to get you kids out if Upload tries to take you down with an overwhelming number of enemies, while also checking out their infrastructure," the red eyed probably-not-human replied. "Serp is also a bit better at hitting a lot of targets at once than big one on one fights, and from just what I've personally seen digimon can get stronger than my team can handle."

Around them were the collection of discussions and other small sparring groups that the larger group had split into. Yolei had ended up as a Flybeemon again, and was in a discussion with a fox monster with a massive mane of red hair that had been disguised as a human. Cody and the other natural monsters of their group were all in the largest collection of people sparring, with Hawkmon being the most notable as he kept glancing at his sister with worry and getting hit from that distraction.

"So, is Upload normal for what you go up against or are they something special?" the Flamedramon asked as he moved to a sitting position to watch the rest of the room as he caught his breath.

"They are far safer than what we are used to," Shawn said in a deadly serious tone. "What they've been doing to the digimon world is the best case for what my usual enemies do to digital worlds and digimon. The converted stuff turns back to normal with Upload." The trainer looked at him a bit sadly. "Serperior has had to cut limbs off of pokemon infected by corruption in order to save their lives before. We've evacuated entire Boxes of pokemon and send them to Delta 2 for emergency treatment."

"Oh," Davis said a bit faintly. It actually did sort of explain why the snake monster seemed to prefer avoiding fights, and sort of even why he was so good at taking out the Dark Rings of an entire group of digimon at once. "So, they are bad guys, but not all that evil of bad guys."

"Corruption aren't evil," the snake eyed trainer corrected him. "That needs them to be able to know that what they do is wrong. Most of the time the things I fight can't even know what they are doing, and are hurting themselves just as much as the pokemon I protect." He looked sad. "Evil is when something could be doing something else instead, and chooses to do something that hurts others. This Gym is all about that difference, because the thing about being a Dark type trainer is walking that line. Where you use power that can hurt others in a way that doesn't cause real harm."

"Are you sure you're a Grass type trainer?" Grim asked walking in with a still upset looking T.K. "Because that was a very good way of putting one of my key lessons."

"I am so much of a Grass type I can grow plants," Shawn said a touch jokingly, and the Gym Leader stumbled from a vine that seemed to have wrapped around his leg. "But the nature of my job gives me an appreciation to the bluntness of your own type."

\---

There was now another hole in the wall, albeit a much cleaner one, along with many scorch marks and one place where the material had simply melted. "Huh, that wasn't too bad," Lacey said as if punching holes in reinforced walls was normal for this world. "I was sure we'd have to replace more of it. That's why we didn't bother fixing that last one before you got here after all."

"So, do you replace this place's walls a lot?" Wizardmon asked uneasily. His abilities were all drastically changed, although not in a way that prevented him from recognizing just how he needed to alter his methods. Unfortunately that left his control in an abysmal state, and he'd caused what he thought was far too much collateral damage.

"When a pokemon like you needs to use it? Every time," the Dark type trainer confirmed. "After we get your teammate checked out I'm going to get started on that. If you've got time I'd appreciate some help with that, but it sounds like you're fairly busy overall."

"What exactly am I going to be doing?" Miko asked looking at the damage nervously, and Wizardmon passed along that message.

"Probably a lot less damage than he did, and it is really nice having a translator on hand for this one," Lacey replied with a bit of relief. "In your case our first goal is just getting it so you can recognize what using energy feels like, and how to not use it when you don't want to." The trainer then began working Miko through how exactly to do that, which gave Wizardmon time to process what they'd discovered about his new capabilities.

The major change was frighteningly enough that it was now far easier to manipulate reality. Notably a spell that before had made just an intricate illusion of water now was responsible for a puddle of still quite real water at one edge of the room. His ability to create and change matter and energy was now far more potent.

Which made the difficulty in doing it accurately all the more unnerving. To the extent that he was actually paying a good bit of attention to Miko's instruction to see if there were any details he'd not known about how the locals did things that Lacey had thought he already knew. Which was rather worrying as the advice being given to the cat seemed far more in line with what he needed to learn than he expected a relatively mundane creature to learn. The powers he had been familiar with as a digimon were either more common among pokemon, or Miko was a stronger creature than he expected.

"You should get these things down before you move on to attempting any elemental manipulation," Lacey explained simply, as if that was something they would obviously try. "Although you want to pay attention to what you do to make sure that you don't have a minor affinity with that kind of thing, because if you do you might end up using some without much effort."

Kari and Gatomon were just as confused looking as Miko about this statement. "Are you saying that I should avoid breathing fire?" the formerly normal cat asked a bit sarcastically, and Wizarmon translated that for his own curiosity about the answer.

"Maybe, but like I said probably not worth trying," Lacey confirmed. "If you can figure it out Pay Day is a fairly nice move to learn. Precious metal coins are valuable everywhere after all, always something someone will be able to do with them so you can make a bit of money practicing."

The explanation that one kind of otherwise entirely normal cat pokemon could just make money out of thin air was a bit telling about how worried they needed to be. It rather clearly answered Wizardmon's question on if remaking reality was a common skill.

\---

"Talking is odd," Sneasel said once they got home. "But it should be useful, master."

"Please don't call me that," T.K. complained, and tried to reassure his mother about this with a look.

"Boss?" the pokemon suggested with some enthusiasm, then wilted as his new trainer did not react very well to that either. "Sir?"

"Is it really that bad to just call him 'T.K.'?" Patamon asked a touch harshly of his new teammate, eying the pokemon critically.

"I just want to show my loyalty," the Dark/Ice monster huffed and turned away from the digimon. "That's what I meant about talking, most pokemon don't have to worry about what they call their trainer like this."

"So, this is a new friend?" Nancy Takaishi asked with a bit of confusion.

"I think I'd prefer 'minion'?" Sneasel suggested, although in a slightly cruel joking tone rather than seriously.

"He's supposed to help me learn to handle being around monsters that aren't as nice," T.K. sighed. "Also he apparently needs someone to tell him what is and isn't appropriate to do."

The pokemon looked a little disappointed at this fairly cold sentiment, but the look on the Digidestined's mother's face seemed to reassure the monster a little. "Alright, so what is the plan for where he's staying?" she asked curiously.

"In my pokeball?" the pokemon asked with considerable confusion. "I mean, that's where pokemon usually sleep, right?"


	90. 4-1A Family and Flowers

\--- Family and Flowers ---

Chikara Hida arrived in the world of Mystery Dungeons alongside a large crowd of refugee digimon. Not long after he joined the locals to help to calm down a number of his fellow travelers who had not expected, despite the explanation that seemed quite clear to him, that they might end up transformed into pokemon. This included breaking up a sudden fight as one particular group had an argument go too far because of the change.

"Thank you for the help," one of the digital spheres that had come along to help manage the group said when it was all mostly sorted out. A life form from DSS's storage systems if he understood things right. "I'm sorry that we have kept you from your own goals with this issue."

"Not a problem, it is always a good thing to pass along knowledge and experience to those going through an issue," he replied a bit jovially. "Besides, I'm planning on a rather long journey. A bit more time spent on the start of it doesn't impact the overall length too much."

"Nevertheless, thank you," the orb said and Chikara made his way into the town proper in order to get some travel supplies.

He had received some of this world's money to help with that endeavor, which was the main reason he arrived along with this group as they were also getting a basic amount as part of their own trip, and it was easier to simply get a part of that much larger quantity than to get a smaller amount on his own. The local pokemon were more than ready for questions about that kind of thing as well, and it seemed that they had setup something of a carnival for the next couple of days to welcome the digimon. As he was getting food that the locals knew kept well he overheard that they were not planning on doing it for the next trip the other monsters planned to make in a couple of weeks. If things went as he currently planned he would probably be back around that time.

"Ah, Mr. Hida, I am really glad I caught you," Celebi suddenly said just as he reached the edge of town with his collection of supplies. "I wanted to apologize for the whole mess with your family last time."

"You wish to apologize to me?" Chikara questioned in genuine confusion. "I allowed Joe to strike at you after you allowed us to see old relatives."

The Legendary pokemon blinked at that and tilted his head. "To 'strike at' me? With that water spurt? I've had worse hits for worse reasons that were still justified," the god said no less certainly, but with a bit of a thoughtful tone. "I think you're missing something, I'm a tainted forest god, not a normal one. Keeping me in line is an important thing that must be done, and it is very much the proper thing to be clear with me when I do something wrong."

That, made a worrying degree of sense. "Then perhaps I should make sure I understand what you mean by 'wanted to apologize' before I agree to it," he replied slowly. If that sort of reaction was to deal with a known problem then he could see the logic, a powerful spirit might need a sharp hit to realize it was doing something harmful.

"You're here for a long trip right?" Celebi asked as if he already knew how this was going to turn out, which considering what the Legendary could do likely was true. "Well, I happen to be able to make that long trip all happen without you being away from home too long."

The Marowak carefully considered that idea. "We are getting a Lucario to go over this first," he declared strongly.

"Okay, yeah, we probably should do that," the forest god admitted.

\---

Mimi was having a fairly good time so far. Amy had been really excited about helping out with everything, while Ann was honestly better at explaining the specifics. They were still on the road, although apparently the three day trip to the other town was short by local standards. Which, honestly, was actually about what she'd been through in the digital world, actually better as she actually had a destination to reach. They had passed by a couple of other travelers so far in the past two days, but the main thing they had encountered was wild pokemon.

That had gone much better than Mimi had expected. So far all of the pokemon had shown up either angry about them being too close to their homes, or far more commonly they simply and clearly wanted to test how strong they were. The fights themselves were so tame that she honestly could remember Tai and Matt attacking each other more harshly, and because of that she did give in to Palmon and let her partner help keep them entertained.

"Grimer are really good at looking tough," Amy said happily about the latest encounter they had gotten into. The small blob monster arrived more panicked than combative, and after her own past the sight of a bad smelling blob in a panic was something that Mimi could no longer just ignore or run from. "I'm sure you can make it a great contestant."

"Is this really not a normal place for them?" she asked the two girls, carefully inspecting her new purple sludge monster. That kind of question was something she honestly needed to ask, because so far this had not been too much different than travel in the digital world, and she knew for a fact that this kind of monster could just be in forests there.

"From the looks of things he, she?, is probably the result of some trainer not properly cleaning up after their Poison type attacks," Ann answered from a bit further away than they were, although before everything that happened in the digital world Mimi probably would have been just as far, if not already out of sight. "Grimer sometimes happen when moonlight hits toxic sludge." The pokemon nodded uneasily to confirm this statement.

"Huh, so are they common or not?" Palmon asked in a way that sounded like that was actually strange to her.

"Not unless there is a big problem with pollution somewhere," Amy said cheerfully. Mimi and Ann simply sighed at how cheerful the girl always seemed to be. "It honestly is a big problem, because they can be really hostile in large groups. If you clean the place up you also need to resettle them somewhere or..." she trailed off, and Mimi took a moment to realize she meant they died off. It was the first time someone from this world had really mentioned dying to her, and Amy looked half broken just from hinting at it.

"It generally doesn't go that badly," Ann said more to comfort Amy than to explain things to the Digidestined. "Grimer, and their evolved form Muk, are fairly solid pokemon in general. Well, not literally solid, they're kind of the opposite of that, but when it comes to combat generally there are enough trainers willing to take them on." The calmer girl looked over at Mimi with a bit of relief. "I'm glad we had someone like that with us. I, am not exactly up for a Grimer."

"Roselia is fine with my Muk, but it’s sick right now so I don't want it to get the wrong idea," Amy said, and the Digidestined was surprised to learn she already had one of the creatures. "I can help you with things a bit though. You probably will want your own style, but they're uncommon pokemon so advice should help."

"I'm not looking forward to when it's back to health," Ann mumbled. Given the monster was named a 'Muk' Mimi could guess that it wasn't very clean. "But you are a Poison type Coordinator after all."

That had been an odd thing to learn, but Mimi found that in the long run Amy's cheer was a bit caustic in nature, and the members of her team the Digidestined had met so far were very friendly. Which given they tended to have poisonous skin or thorns was a bit unnerving, and it seemed that even Ann agreed with that assessment.

\---

Floramon did not expect this to be the way she saw digimon from her homeland again, but that didn't mean she didn't have time to prepare for it. Her stand was fully stocked, more than usual because of the festival to welcome them that the Lucario had organized. A few out of town Grass types had even asked her to sell their produce for them in order to exploit her nature as a digimon herself. Mostly ones she had met before, who had been happy for her now that she was a proper Grass type herself.

The addition of a type she had gone through was the thing that worried her the most about all of this. It had not quite been an admittance that she wasn't going home, but it still meant she wasn't a normal digimon anymore. It wasn't something that these visitors would be able to tell right off, but that didn't stop her from being uneasy about it.

"Floramon?" a broken sounding voice asked from the approaching crowd, and suddenly another one of her species was in front of her stand. "You're alive," her old friend whispered. Floramon quickly made her way out in front of the stand to let the other digimon hug her. "Puppetmon didn't kill you."

"'Puppetmon'?" she asked, and soon had a crowd of digimon all carefully explaining just how bad things had gotten after she had become lost. Each one picked up where the other couldn't continue, or where there was some information missing. It was a terrible story, and she felt really bad that she was so lucky as to have missed all of it. Her now somewhat more combative nature also meant that there was a desire to face these enemies that she noticed quite clearly, and carefully tried to hide.

"You have a building shaped like your head," the other Floramon finally said after they finished the explanation, while the Lucario guiding this group around carefully and silently asked if she needed help getting rid of the crowd.

The Grass typed digimon silently and subtly shook her head to say she was fine. "Yeah, it's only been a few years for me, but that was more than enough time to get a stand set up," she answered, then with just a bit of trepidation asked the key question. "So, do you all want to hear about the local fruits? There are some really good ones, and I've already thought of taking a few back home if I ever got the chance. I have planting guides too."

That got her a bit of an incredulous stare, before the group moved closer and her old friend clearly decided that she needed to explain everything about her new world too.

\---

Two months in one week, he felt that should be more than enough time, and it was also the most the Lucario had said he should risk with Celebi. Chikara had spent the first three days of it in the wilderness between the two towns, facing off against eager to practice travelers and half feral pokemon that lived away from civilization. He was now outside a large cliff face cut with many holes and tunnels, and guarded by a mixture of his own species along with a few other pokemon that had a common set of unusual features. Most notable was the many brown furred Lucario he could see, all with fused metal skulls atop their heads, as if they had also evolved like a Marowak.

"You are the new human traveler of our kind?" one of the local Marowak said walking forward to meet him. "The old Lucario did mention to me that you had shown some interest in learning of our shared kind." There was a serious look in the bone keeper's eyes. "What makes you wish to learn such things?"

"My daughter in law and grandsons are Sandshrew, descendants of pokemon from this world," Chikara answered, prepared somewhat for this event by an older pokemon that had been here before. He had not recognized the species of the large four legged canine, but was grateful for the aid. "They now have the option of being in that form instead of human form, and I need to decide if I wish to use this one the same way."

That gave most of the pokemon in earshot pause, including the elder that had agreed to meet him here. "Who did you lose?" the old Marowak now asked, looking at his ancestral skull grimly. "It isn't unheard of for a human to become one of our kind without that kind of history, but to be a Marowak to start instead of a Cubone, it is typically the case."

"My son gave his life to protect others," he answered honestly, forewarned that they would ask about many of his dead relatives, and harshly aware of what was said to be worn by Cubone in the literature on DSS's world. "I am mostly at peace with that, but I do not know how to best help his son, and the complicated situation that has resulted in him having another son as well."

"You already know what the reason is," the elder said with a tiny hint of relief. "We have records of past transformed, although some did lose most of their memories, and it is a common feature of those who became our species." He sighed with a bit of fondness. "The ancestors have left us with writings on how to help with these situations. Come, let us inspect them. Hopefully no spirits are active within the library chambers to lead us astray."

"I also must check to see if there are any relatives of my family here," Chikara noted as they started moving towards the entryway. "We know that one relative went to your city, but not if there were any descendants still here."

"I do know of a Sandslash that lives here who said he might have relatives with an unusual situation visiting," the elder noted. "We can see if he is willing to come see us as we look at the records, perhaps he meant you."

\---

Mimi looked at the town with quite a bit of excitement. It was far more heavily wooded than Shade Cross, and you could just barely see the docks along the river through the trees back the way they came. The buildings were nicely made, with many small gardens of colorful flowers being tended by plant pokemon of various kinds and their human companions. Large twisting vines made up the local Gym, one of the largest buildings in town, with the nicely made massive wooden cabin like Contest Hall attached to its natural looking mass directly.

"Oh wow, that's even prettier than you made it sound," Palmon told Ann, and Grimer burbled in agreement. Her partner/sister had actually taken quite a liking to the blob monster, which meant she probably wasn't going to use her backup plan of getting someone else to take him now that they were back in a town.

"Yeah, I always like it here," the calmer of her new friends agreed. "I got Carnivine from the new local Gym Leader last year. He wasn't suited for proper combat, didn't have quite the right fighting temperament." It was still odd for Mimi how the people of this world so easily spoke about that sort of thing, and the fact that she could personally see what they meant too was still unnerving.

"So, when exactly is the Contest?" Mimi asked the pair, wondering if she should have done so earlier. She had not wanted to have the knowledge that she had decided on a rather long time away from her world hanging over the trip. "I mean, I think Palmon and I can do some basic things to show off, but I'm still not sure I know what your world is looking for there."

"Honestly, actually honestly?" Amy said more seriously than anything Mimi had heard from her before. "Palmon needs a bit of work on her confidence. The Contests start tomorrow, and goes on until the day after, so we have today to work on things and finish getting ready." The girl did not look happy about what she said next. "I know you just caught him, but Grimer so far hasn't been as easily stage frightened when we've worked with him. I want you to try once with him before we work on Palmon more, if the three of you are up for that."

Palmon sighed at this statement before Mimi could try and argue. "Yeah, I just. I'm not used to people watching me like this. Maybe if we had been around each other more," the plant monster lamented, and Mimi was reminded of how they had been growing apart for years with little chance to bridge the gap.

"We can try both," Ann said thoughtfully. "My routine for this is pretty well setup, and at my level I don't really want to practice any of it in town." She looked over at the Gym unhappily. "Although, I kinda wanted to try and find Leader Reading again, the Gym's Serperior looks kinda like the one that guy you met to go shopping had. I wonder if he is related."

"The Serperior or Ms. Reading? Because I think that's Shawn's last name actually," Mimi noted with a bit of unease. "Also I'm not sure if Shawn and Serperior were actually brothers somehow or not. They seemed almost deliberately unclear about it," she complained.

\---

Floramon blinked at how the crowd was finally gone, save for her old friend. Which was mostly good, as her easy to reach goods had all been sold and she needed some time to get stock out of the back rooms again. She had made some good money, and even managed to recruit some of the digimon turned pokemon to go search the areas outside of the Mystery Dungeons for some wild produce as well with the promise of buying it from them.

"So, what haven't you mentioned yet?" the other Floramon asked. "Because you handled everything better than I thought you would, and." Her friend paused to collect her thoughts. "You're stronger, in a weird way. Your plants are moving with you."

That was the biggest side effect so far. Floramon had underestimated just how much power Grass types had over the plants around them, and she still had what most of them called a bad habit of letting her power go out of control a bit to move things she didn't actually mean to. Supposedly that was a waste of energy that would leave you tired more easily, and while she still felt that personally she had more energy that she knew what to do with now, that still was a thing she had to work on. "I accepted an offer to become a Grass type, like the plant pokemon of this world," she answered with a sigh, and carefully stopped the plants from following her movements. "I did it so that if I ever got a chance to go back to our world I could grow my berries more easily."

Her friend looked at one of the last remaining fruit on the stand. "But it's more than that though, isn't it?" the other Floramon asked sadly. "You, you might not be coming back."

"I'm not that happy that there is another problem stopping me to be honest," she replied strongly. "This world has helped me, and I do have friends here, but I've never given up all of my hope to see my home again."

The other digimon was quiet for far too long, giving Floramon plenty of time to get out enough produce to help with a pair of locals desperate to avoid the crowds while still getting some fresh supplies. This didn't fully distract her from the lack of response, and the easy way the pokemon all interacted with her after she had lived here so long obviously made whatever was wrong worse. The two Zoroark probably could have disguised themselves as something other than different kinds of pokemon to try and help with that, but they were clearly tired from interacting with visiting digimon themselves.

"I wouldn't find the place I left if I went back," she asked when they were alone again. "Would I?" It was something she had feared more than never getting a chance to go back. With how bad just the few things she had heard about so far were, she sort of already knew the answer.

"We, we thought he'd found some new way to kill you, one that didn't work right," her friend said quietly, almost mumbling. "He was so mad he had us-" The other Floramon simply shook her head. "The village has been gone as long as you have. We built something new afterward, something that didn't remind us so much about the Dark Master's evil."

"I want to at least see it," Floramon sharply said, she felt even more upset than her tone implied but did not want to give into it. "And at least setup a nice garden for the rest of you."

\---

The stone tablets were expected, but the carefully carved bones of both ancestors and enemies were definitely not. The Ghost types that in at least two cases had actually previously used those bones for their original purpose did make it clear that this was a normal thing, but Chikara still dreaded what he'd think of all this when he was human again. The many pieces of advice on how to deal with becoming a pokemon had an unfortunate lack of any information on that particular situation, and in general had the implication that the writer did not expect to be human again at all.

"How long do you have?" the elder asked after they had finished spending almost the entire day on just this project.

"Nearly two months," the transformed human replied. "I wanted to learn things properly." What little they had covered so far had proven to him that there was a lot to learn.

The older Marowak nodded, and then turned to one of the entryways. "You called for me, elder?" a new voice asked. It was soon revealed to be a Sandslash, but one that had evolved like a Marowak, like many of the pokemon in the Tomb-City. The pokemon's body was the same tan color as a typical Sandslash, but his spines were the color of dried bone instead of the typical brown, with sharp edges and pockmarks. This matched the thick skull fused with his head, with holes allowing his ears to stick out. The most notable difference, however, was the shape of this Sandslash's hands. Instead of two large claws, the pokemon had three still good sized ones formed into a clearly pronounced hand shape. Which were currently holding a sword of bone and a shield that closely resembled the Tomb-Sandslash's spiked back.

"Yes, you had mentioned that you were expecting some distant relatives?" the elder questioned, directing Chikara to come over.

"I have been told that this is the time period they visited my ancestor from," Sandslash confirmed with a nod. "One of her sons had somehow ended up going to the human world instead of the typical result. Have you heard news about such a group?"

"My daughter in law and grandsons," Chikara replied nodding himself. "I am here to learn more of their world, and the species I have become."

"Great great grandmother is setting things up again I see," the spiky pokemon complained tapping his skull covered head unhappily. "I have some knowledge of the situation, elder, I'm sure I can aid him in finding what he seeks."

"Perhaps, but the skill of reproducing a skull properly is one you cannot teach him," the elder replied with firm amusement, and the Sandslash looked embarrassed by his tone. "I believe that from what I've heard he needs to learn that lesson."

\---

Mimi laughed as Grimer showed off the short routine they had come up with for the entry level competition that her team had entered. It actually looked rather impressive to her, and the blob monster had even figured out a basic way of manipulating the shade of its sludge. In the stands she could see Palmon and their new friends cheering them on.

Soon after the Digidestined of Sincerity found herself walking off the stage holding a third place ribbon for her performance. "Third out of twelve sees a bit high for my first time," she nervously said as Ann and Amy arrived with Palmon.

"Well, you did say you've done fashion shows back in your world right? That means you have a bit more experience than most of the other first timers there," Ann said seriously.

"Also in practice it sounded like you already knew a good amount about working with monster fashion too," Amy said more cheerfully, while still proudly showing off her second place ribbon from the day before. "You were able to spot that problem we were having with Roselia's leaves after all."

Mimi cringed a bit at that one. "I mostly knew that because the point was to hide him," she admitted. "I had some practice figuring out how to find creatures that were hiding from me."

"Ah, the Chosen One stuff," Ann mumbled uncertainly to Amy, and both girls looked at her sympathetically. "Yeah, that probably does help. I've heard stories about how Chosen Ones would always look for normal things to get good at that weren't saving the world."

"Yeah, last year we even had the League Tournament get won by someone who was basically a Chosen One," Amy said a touch unhappily. "Their Elite Four Challenge got interrupted by terrorists that tried to melt the glacier. Last I heard all of the Champions are still trying to clean that up."

"Has there been any word on if that Jane girl won her Elite Four match?" Mimi asked to try and get back to a lighter topic.

"The Charizard girl?" Amy asked conspiratorially. "I bet she does it, she has cool transformation powers! Have you ever seen anything like that before?"

"My uncle works for Starshine," Ann dully replied. "He says that the secret to their films is that all of the actors turn into pokemon too."

"Is it true though?" Amy jokingly replied, and Mimi cringed because she had heard that the local film studio was involved in the transformation magic DSS had been using.

"I visited him once and ended up spending an hour as a Ralts," Ann said unhappily. "It was weird and I was too busy sulking because I wasn't evolved to pay enough attention to what the pokemon around me were saying."

"You've been a pokemon?" Amy asked just as surprised as Mimi. "Wait, that's actually a thing that happened to you?"

"It was only an hour," Ann dodged. "Didn't even get being able to talk to pokemon out of it."

"A bunch of my friends ended up switching species with their partners," the Digidestined of Sincerity cut in to try and help her new friend out. "That was really odd because we had to help their digimon deal with being human too."

Roselia and Carnivine both looked quite intimidated by this idea, and the flower pokemon looked at his trainer nervously as she considered that idea. "Wait, does that mean that Jane might actually be a Charizard that turns into a human?" Amy asked to the relief of her teammate. "Ooh! What if I find a way of doing both and have a routine where me and my pokemon shift back and forth?"

Ann looked as nervous about that one as Mimi felt, and she wondered if the calmer girl also knew of a way to actually do just that.

\---

Three months was longer than he had planned, but it was how long it took for him to know enough to truly make his choice. "I don't think I will spend all my time in this form," Chikara Hida said to his daughter in law's somewhat distant cousin. "Much of it perhaps, but I feel that I am still quite human when it comes to it."

"You do have an interesting outlook on things," the Sandslash agreed a bit jokingly. The transformed human had spent most of the time learning from other Marowak, but the spiky pokemon had been able to give much of his own outlook on living among the tombs. "Is it really so hard to make a proper Tomb in the human world?"

"By your standards yes," Chikara sighed. "However, a big part of that is we do not have such clear ways of contacting the spirits of the dead. If we did I suspect that there would indeed be Tomb-Cities on our world as well."

"It has taken time and tradition to make it that easy," the Sandslash replied with good humor. "My own ancestors are hard to draw forth, as they did not have that background. I believe you understand why my Great Great Grandmother is an exception to that?"

"I see," the transformed human agreed. "I suppose then that I will have to make the attempt when I return home." There was a collection of transcribed tomes and raw materials in another bag he was now carrying out of the settlement. "Perhaps I can at least try and call on my relatives." The locals has said it should be possible, that even without energy there should be some traces of the spirits that could be drawn forth and given energy to manifest. He would be taking any attempts very carefully.

"Will you offer your grandsons reproductions of their father's skull?" the native asked solemnly. "I will admit, I would find that question hard myself, and I at least share their species." The question had been a common one, both for Chikara and other families living in the city. The only species he had not seen asked about such a thing were other Marowak about their Cubone children, with even families of the guardian Lucario who had no members without ancestral metal skulls would still ask and decide instead of just assume.

"I will test to see how well I can make the reproduction first," Chikara said nodding. "Since I am using this form I feel the need to give him one of my new kind's tombs as well as the human method." The thoughts he had on all of these topics were mixed, and after months as just a pokemon he was sure that they had become quite a bit skewed.

\---

Floramon looked up at the Marowak as he approached her stand, and recognized him as the human that had arrived the week before with the crowd of refugees. "Ah, Mr. Hida, good to see you again," she greeted him. "I thought you were planning to visit the Tomb-City for longer."

"Celebi felt that he owed me a favor," the Ground type noted with a typical hint of annoyance for someone who had to deal with the Legendary pokemon's antics. "Actually, I ended up making even more work for him though by staying a bit too long."

"Did he say that he told himself that it would work out?" she asked, and at the transformed human's nod she sighed. "Yeah, he lies to himself about that kind of thing all the time. I think he might have a bit of a problem actually, as he doesn't seem to find it very funny when he does it. No one I've talked to is really sure if it is normal or not though."

The pokemon nodded again at that as he looked over her replenished stock. A number of the digimon, both transformed and not, had stayed in town a few extra days to earn some more Poke. Her old friend was staying now to help her with her gardens, and the odd jobs she had set up to buy produce from travelers were actually working out nicely.

"If you were given the chance to change what you were, would you take it?" he asked her as he inspected some of her handwritten recipe guides. They were actually transcribed by the Lucario she had originally learned them from, who got all the money from them. Travelers tended to pay well for them while also buying ingredients to make some dishes, so both of them got a good value out of that small section of her stand. She had run out three times over the course of the festival, and even now only had a pair of the guides available for sale.

"I did actually," Floramon replied easily. She had her own time to deal with the consequences of that action this week, and was more than willing to help someone else with a problem she had dealt with before. "I'm now a Grass type, technically a pokemon. Even if it does distance me a bit from my original world, I think the benefits are worth it."

"True enough. When the world you are living in changes it is likely time to change yourself," Mr. Hida agrees, clearly having made the same choice sometime recently. "My daughter in law has some recipes from this world, although we have been making them with substitute ingredients. Could you possibly help me identify the originals?"

Floramon nodded at the question, and grabbed her personal plant guidebook to see what he actually knew about what he was after.


	91. 4-1B Shape Shifting Trials

\--- Shape Shifting Trials ---

Tai looked over the assembled Digidestined with a bit of trepidation at what the main event for this meeting would bring. So far they were still only picking at the edges of their two foes to try and find somewhere they could cause some real damage, while also trying to figure out just how much damage they really could afford to cause to one side or the other.

"So we can hit the armies pretty hard actually," Davis, currently a Flamedramon, explained. "Upload retreats quickly when we hit hard enough, although they don't really have anything to take out so that isn't really hurting them much. The Emperor is easier since we can still take on his artificial digimon alright for now and his stuff is a lot more obvious."

"He's definitely working on making it so those forces can handle us," Izzy added as the field team's leader finished his clearly practiced summary. "We have identified a number of sites where it seems that improved versions are being developed that I think we should try to take out." The boy genius sighed and looked over at the captured production line still sitting in their base unused. "Which is better than what we can do about Upload. I'm getting closer to finding where they've got the Digi-Egg of Friendship, but other than that all of their stuff is highly redundant. They don't have any notable bases that they can't just move operations out of easily. The only good news is that it doesn't look like they are breaking their own firepower limitations anytime soon."

"Alright, I hate to say this, because it's a really odd thing for us to actually do, but can you guys write me up some reports on all of that?" Tai had to ask. "I've got news that the pokemon world is finally sending over a Champion to help, and I want something official looking to show them about what we're doing. I've already got a desk full of paperwork for you to put them on and everything," he complained to his team.

"Yeah, I think I can clean up my notes," Davis replied to the shock of the rest of the team. "I wanted to make sure I did it right," the armor digimon clarified at that reaction. "It has been helping with school too."

Izzy looked a lot more nervous about that request, which was exactly the opposite of what Tai had expected. "I can help them out with that," Joe cut in, while Gomamon was struggling to move around the good sized box they had brought from their internship. "Is our work next?"

"I hope so, I want to get this over with," the seal digimon grumbled as he opened the box to look inside. "You know what, I'm not waiting. Here they are, amulets to turn humans into digimon and digimon into humans." Gomamon then glared at Joe. "We had to test them ourselves."

Tai sighed about the whole idea. It honestly was the news he least wanted to deal with, but nobody had stopped the work on that project, and Davis' mom really did want Veemon to be a human most of the time. He still didn't like the fact that Kari had been asking him about if it was ready, and now would be able to get one. "Alright, but I want to see what they do first," he said, earning a bit of a glare from the pair.

\---

Matt looked at the pair in front of them uneasily. It was someone who looked like Joe, and someone who looked like Gomamon, but the two of them were currently in exactly the wrong shape. He quite honestly did not want to see either of their faces with the expression typically found on their partner, and actually having to see a Gomamon as serious as Joe while someone identical to Joe was halfway goofing off somehow was worse than he expected. "Can he turn into the otter again instead?" he mumbled with a bit of a sigh. "That would be a bit less distracting."

Gabumon nodded next to him while the rest of the group went over and distributed the new objects, a different grey colored version of the pendant that the Digidestined of Reliability had taken to wearing. Veemon, or really Davey now, had already put one on and Matt wasn't sure how long it would be before the digimon was going to school.

"Are, are you going to try Matt?" his partner asked a bit uneasily, and Matt looked over at Gabumon to see the digimon nervously picking at his arm.

"Not if I don't have to," he replied quietly. It was the best he can say now, because there was a very real chance that they might need everyone fighting in order to take on entire armies like what they were up against. "Is something wrong?" he asked at his partner shifting a bit from that mediocre response.

"It's silly," Gabumon said with a sigh. "I just. If you did then you'd be a Gabumon too, right?"

"Yeah, I would." Matt was vaguely interested in knowing what it would be like, but nowhere near enough to actually want the answer. The thought of what it would be like to have fur was interesting, but he definitely didn't want to learn the reasons for T.K.'s complaints about keeping it clean firsthand.

"I'm just," Gabumon started before giving another sigh. "I don't want you to, because then you could take off your pelt and you'd know what I look like under mine."

Matt started to reassure his friend, and then what Gabumon meant caught up with him. Along with a realization that suddenly made him worry about something far different than what Gabumon was worried about. "You're wearing a pelt," he said dumbly, and Gabumon nodded with a bit of confusion. "You, you look different without the pelt." Matt was more than worried now, and from how his partner reacted it clearly showed on his face.

"Matt? Is something wrong with that?" the digimon asked louder than they had been talking, but a quick look revealed that it seemed that Tai heard enough to drag the rest of the group away so they could talk in peace.

"Gabu, I was thinking I would look like you," he tried to explain, suddenly unsure of himself. "Not, not whatever you look like without that, like you. I, don't know how to take looking like something other than what you do now." Matt couldn't keep himself from cringing at how he said that about his friend.

Gabumon didn't look at him unhappily though. "Well, maybe that just proves we are copies of each other then," the digimon said as he rubbed a hand along his pelt. "Because I don't want to look like that either."

\---

Yolei frowned at the small grey pendant around her neck. She still wasn't quite sure why she had decided to take it. It was easy to see why Davis and Davey had them, Kari was easy enough to understand, and Patamon seemed just generally upset as he took one for reasons that still were probably better than her own.

The best reason she could think of was that Hawkmon hadn't taken one, didn't even get close to the box to look at them, and that actually hurt a bit. Davey and Armadillomon were both easily acting like brothers to their partners, but her own didn't seem to want that. Kari and T.K. had siblings before, and knew their partners for long time before learning that they were relatives. So, if Hawkmon didn't want to be human then maybe she should try to be a digimon more.

It still didn't sit well with her as a good reason, and in the digimon world she was barely being human already, but everyone else was getting along so well. They also were all at least considering the items.

"I'm not sure I'm actually going to use this," Davis commented, and given he was still a digimon when he said it that was fairly obvious. "I want to have it sure, but... Wait, what would happen if I tried it right now?"

"Do not do that," Joe sharply said, which was somehow more impactful while he was shaped like Gomamon. "We do not know what would happen, and I fairly obviously couldn't test that one for us."

It only took a moment to use her pendant to become a Hawkmon again. Yolei could see her brother react with clear shock, and honestly she was rather surprised herself. "I think he might want to put it down then," she said unhappily at how easily it had been to set it off, and Davis' hit the floor immediately after she finished speaking. "This feels, a bit better than last time," she noted as she tried to pin down why that was. "I can't tell if it isn't as bad because I know I can just turn back, or because I've been using armor evolutions so much." Both were fairly good options for why she didn't yet have the same discomfort.

"Being able to turn back when you want does sound better," Hawkmon said quietly, and Yolei thought that the way he looked at her was a step in the right direction at least.

\---

Looking at the rather notable pile of paperwork he had only been partly joking about Tai decided that the reports he asked for the day before weren't working too well as a distraction from Kari spending the afternoon as a digimon again. She had told him that she wanted to figure out what was different when she was a BlackGatomon, but so far he had just seen three cats terrorizing the house instead of just two. Although that was helping to get Miko safely using her new powers.

"Watch out guys, we don't want to tire Wizardmon out," he called out as said formerly normal cat cut through the leg of a wooden chair. Tai had to flinch at the clattering sound of the chair falling, and he also made sure to keep his paperwork steady as it hit the table on the way down.

"It is good practice," Wizardmon quickly said as the former digimon moved to use his own magic powers to repair the chair. Again, for the third time just today. Miko even meowed apologetically about it.

Tai just shook his head and tried to go back to looking over the reports. Davis had actually surprised him with how well it covered things so that he could actually understand what the younger Digidestined meant, even if he was still having some issues with details or apparently with getting information on what his teammates had done. He realized that probably meant that he was going to need to have all of them making these things going forward to get the full picture of what was happening, and a quick look back at the mess his home was currently in was more than enough to include the digimon partners in that requirement. With what he had now, and with the page of advice from Matt's dad to compare to them, Tai was fairly sure he had a good handle on what to give the team for requirements.

Which is where Izzy's report came in, and Tai did not know what to think about the fact that Davis had done such a better job at actually making a comprehensible report. Tai had actually needed to refer back to the field leader's report in order to puzzle out just what topic the Digidestined of Knowledge had tried to cover. If there were teachers for digital world physics Izzy probably would have gotten an A+ for it, but since it was supposed to be for Tai to read it kind of was a C or maybe a D in practice. Worst of all was that the thing had been split into sections, but they all talked about things in other sections until it was such a complicated mess that Tai had actually rewritten it three different ways to get at bits of information he actually was looking for. He did not even know where to start with fixing that issue, but he was going to try handing back his own pages of notes with a long written complaint to stand as a record of how bad this was.

On a bright side, Matt's father had also given him a few other documents on possible monster sightings across the country and the world in addition to the advice on report writing. Most didn't appear to be real, but a number matched what Izzy had told him about other Digidestined. It honestly made him feel a bit better about if they were caught out in the open, as there were apparently lots of cases of people with costumes or props out there causing scenes. The worrying part was the copy of a government order to downplay any confirmed monster sightings, or at least make them seem to be fake. Shawn and Serperior apparently were a specific headache for that, as it specifically noted that a report should be made that a foreigner had been allowed to take his pet snake around by accident.

Compared to Izzy's, Joe's submission was perfectly fine to read, and even a bit better than Davis had managed. Which didn't help with the fact that Joe's report was a series of topics that Tai found uncomfortable at best, and worse tied directly into the thing he was trying to stop thinking about by reading these reports. There were summaries of the overall results of transforming Joe and Gomamon into humans and digimon and pokemon, along with the detailed data on what specifically had happened with each of those, and another report on the revised results from what they found out from the younger kids spending a week switched around. It gave a clear picture of how they could and couldn't safely change everyone's species, but it also meant that he had to deal with that being an option they were now regularly employing.

"Are you okay Tai?" Kari suddenly asked him, and he realized that he was just propping his head up while blankly looking at the paperwork. A quick look around revealed that everyone looked somewhat worried about him.

"Right, okay. You know what, I'm going to try this out," Tai said shaking his head. "Maybe being an Agumon will make things make more sense somehow."

\---

Jun Motomiya was a friend, especially now that life had gotten a lot stranger, but that didn't mean Momoe wasn't uneasy about the other girl half dragging her to an obscure area of the closest large park for reasons she didn't really explain beforehand. She was mostly going along with that because it was a good distraction from what was happening at home.

In her opinion the Inoue family was currently going a bit crazier than the others, and she was aware that the two other options were both adding a new brother out of nowhere and turning into monsters all the time. Her father seemed split between wanting to know everything about the other worlds to get an advantage for their store, and wanting to not deal with the fact that there were problems going on too. Her mom was mostly just ignoring that anything had changed, and always stumbled when Yolei or Hawk had to talk about it. Chizuru and Mantarou were both working on the problems from different directions, with her older sister's attempts at making Hawk feel like family getting minimal success, and her older brother now stuck with trying to deal with an entire warehouse that fit inside a computer in the storeroom. All on top of her younger siblings actually fighting a war. Which left her just going to school and trying to figure out what she could do.

"Alright," Jun said as they reached a clearing that was hard to spot from outside of it, and then positioned the two of them so they could clearly view of all the paths leading there. "I managed to get my brothers and mom to agree to let me borrow this." She held up a small grey gemstone on a nice looking necklace, just like one that Momoe had seen just a little bit ago.

"Wait, why are you borrowing one of those?" she asked her friend now even more nervous than ever. "I thought they were for our brothers to change back and forth." She was actually worried that in her case the wrong brother would be using it to go between human and monster.

"Well it should work for anyone," Jun said way too cheerfully. "I want to know what digimon I'd be, see if I really am the same kind of lizard as my brothers. Like we were talking about before, how I'd be a lizard and you'd probably be a bird?"

"The other kids with siblings don't have the same kinds of monsters," Momoe cautioned her friend as Jun put the pendent on. "Is your mom really fine with you doing this?" she had to ask, because she still couldn't really see her friend's mother actually letting Davis transform as much as he apparently was, let alone Jun.

Jun actually looked nervous herself about that question. "Mom wants me to try before she does," the other girl admitted quietly. "She wants to see Davey's world, but doesn't think the Digidestined would agree unless she can protect herself."

That answer made a lot more sense, but was also a lot scarier than what she had been thinking before. "Yolei and Hawk don't talk about it much, do you know how bad things really are there?" she asked as her friend adjusted the necklace.

"It's bad," Jun replied with a cringe. "Davis talks about it some, but I don't think I really want to get into it right now." The other girl looked at her sadly. "I want to just have a bit of fun."

"Alright-" Momoe started, and then a terrible thought hit her. "Wait, you aren't thinking of having me try it too, are you?"

"Of course!" her friend replied with a slightly sinister smile. "Come on, it will be fun."

After a moment spent contemplating if she could get out of it Momoe sighed. "Alright, let's see what we end up." If anything it would be something that would help her understand Hawk and Yolei a bit better.

Jun's body then was covered with a glow, and shrank quite a bit while also changing shape quite a bit. The end result was mostly familiar, being like the pink bird monster that they had met, only blue with pink markings instead of the other way around. Admittedly that pink bird had been one of the older Digidestined that got swapped with their siblings. "BlueBiyomon?" the new digimon asked, which only confused Momoe as she had not remembered what that other monster had been called. "Why does my digimon species have to say that it's blue?"

"You ended up a bird," she said finding that this result was somehow more amusing than anything, or at least that the only feeling getting through was amusement. "I thought you said that was supposed to be me?" The angry look that earned her was still unnerving as it was mostly beak, and she was barely used to her little brother looking like that.

"Hmph, I don't mind being a bird," Jun said, although the girl then started carefully inspecting her new shape. "It is a little strange. Not really what I was expecting."

"That weird?" she asked as the idea that she was actually going to be experiencing it herself began to set in. Her friend wasn't human right now, and she'd agreed to try that too.

"It's, normal. Too normal," her currently digimon friend said carefully. "Like it came with everything to actually be one." Jun shook her head clearly unhappy with how she had said that. "Um, I kind of just know how it works already," the bird attempted to clarify, and demonstrated by flapping into the air slightly. "I think I can see why my brothers have gotten used to this so quickly."

The transformed girl spent a moment hovering around the area, clearly trying out flight, and then changed back to normal. "My turn now?" Momoe asked as her friend started taking off the pendant.

"Yep, I want to see if you end up a lizard instead too," Jun said happily, although with a bit of unease in her stance.

Momoe carefully took the item, and then the two of them spent a couple of minutes going over how it actually worked. Apparently Davis and Davey had been a lot more excited to talk about that with their family than Yolei or Hawk had been. Jun had heard the instructions secondhand, and was fairly sure that there were some details that had been missed, but since they had already seen that the instructions worked for going back and forth Momoe agreed that she could probably trust them.

The grey item hung from her neck ominously as she prepared herself. With a sigh she did as instructed to trigger it, and felt her body shrink and shift. Momoe had to blink as she realized what Jun had meant about it feeling too normal. She could clearly feel her new tail, and her entire shape had changed so much that she had been sure that she would feel weird. Jun silently watched as she actually inspected what she had become, apparently trying to figure something out. She had actually ended up a lizard, one with dark yellow scales, an odd pattern of orange ones on her stomach, and a single horn in the center of her head. Most of her body was hidden though, by a large brown feathered pelt that covered her almost entirely. That had white feathers around her head, and the top half of a beak covering her own muzzle. The strangest part of that was she knew that it was the pelt of an Aquilamon, and that she was a WingGabumon.

"You look like Matt's twin brother, only with a Hawkmon coat," Jun said with a bit of jealousy, but mostly confusion.

"It's from Aquilamon," Momoe replied a bit unhappy about how the other girl had gotten it wrong, despite how she knew that even her knowledge of that wasn't normal. "What I'd evolve into if I could," she said before she fully thought out what that statement actually meant. "Uh."

"No, I get it," Jun replied. "I didn't know what I'd turn into, but I did know that I could." The still human girl was still looking at her thoughtfully. "So what do you look like under those feathers?"

That produced an immediate reaction from her. "No way!" she found herself saying as she hugged the pelt closer to her body, horrified at the idea of her reptile form being exposed in a strange new way. Then she blinked at her own reaction. "Okay," she said slowly. "That's something I care about now." Momoe was surprised at just how much she cared about it, as she couldn't shake the horror enough to even consider showing her friend what she looked like under it.

"Alright, I won't pry," Jun accepted. "Actually that's probably a good thing to know if we talk to Matt's brother, or he turns into a digimon." The girl had a look like she wanted to try and pet Momoe, and that was just as awkward. "So, do you want to try and figure things out more, or can I try again?"

While she did want to try things out a bit more, her friend hadn't spent very long before letting her change. So she took the pendant off and handed it over to the other girl.

This did not result in her becoming a human again, and that left the two of them staring at the small necklace that apparently did not need to be worn to keep you a digimon.

"So, does this mean we can both turn into digimon with just one of these?" Jun asked with only a little bit of fear.

"I really hope it doesn't mean I'm stuck," Momoe complained, even as her friend actually used the item again. Which meant there were now no humans in their small clearing. "You couldn't have waited for me to try and turn back first?" she asked the BlueBiyomon.

\---

Davey looked over the schoolwork with unease. "Are you sure I can do this?" he asked his mom. He had actually been spending a lot of his free time trying to work on the schoolwork that she had gotten around for him.

"I'm sure you can do it," she replied kindly, although their mother still looked sad about whatever she was reading. "It looks like we might need to wait a while though. We would need to say where you came from, and a lot of paperwork to go with that." She sighed sadly. "And we don't know who we can even talk to about that yet."

"Tai said he's looking into it," Davis noted while going over his own homework. He was human while doing it, although he had taken to studying as a Flamedramon, and even reading ahead in a couple of classes in that form. "But he did say that Agumon was mostly doing some home school stuff so far."

"Oh, that actually sounds like a good place to start," his mother agreed.

"So, are you really going to try being a digimon too?" Davey asked her cautiously as he checked the math for one of his answers again.

"When your sister gets back I'll see about it," she replied a bit more nervously. "It isn't that I don't trust what the two of you are saying about it, but I want to hear what it's like from her first."

"Yeah, that makes sense, mom," Davey said with a bit of disappointment. "I'm not even sure what you're going to do with being a digimon."

"I'm going to learn more about my sons," she replied kindly. "And try and help them save their other world if I can." She looked both of them in the eye and then sighed. "I want to see it, the digimon world."

The two brothers, currently both human, did not take that well. "Wait, mom it isn't safe there!" Davis said first, homework forgotten entirely.

"Yeah, there a lots of evil monsters that have taken everything over, and they can even tell when we go there," Davey added with a horrified look at the idea of her being in danger.

"I know," she countered strongly. "That is really why I want to try and be a monster, to see if that will help keep me safe there." She then looked embarrassed. "I spoke with Ms. Hida about it actually, and while she has an odd perspective on humanity, we agree that being able to help if you need it is important."

Davis and Davey looked at each other with considerable worry about that idea, as Cody's family wasn't actually human that often anymore.

\---

Momoe could sort of see why the Hida family had stopped being a human family. She wasn't actually any stronger than before, but that said more about how much her strength had been increased by the pokemon world than that her digimon form was weak. The big thing was that she still felt normal, and being normal as a monster around another monster made the experience a lot easier to deal with.

Admittedly trying to figure out how to clean up the ruts they had made in the park was a major downside. "Maybe we should have waited to try our attacks?" Jun asked as the BlueBiyomon inspected the burned patch they had made on a nearby tree.

"I think maybe we should have," she somewhat sarcastically agreed, and then glared at the dirt getting into her pelt from trying to patch the larger burn spot in the grass. "Also we might want to get out of here before anyone spots this."

Her avian friend nodded uncertainly. "Think we should head home now?" Jun asked with a glance to the sky to judge how late it had gotten.

"Probably," Momoe agreed with a huff. "Do you want to change back first?" she asked, then after her friend did not respond for too long asked again. "Jun, do you want to turn back first?"

"Can, can we try and go home like this?" the BlueBiyomon asked flapping down to stand next to her. "To see what it is like for the normal digimon to be in this world?"

"They had humans around to help them do that," Momoe complained, well aware that it might result in her having to help Jun home as a monster anyway.

"It doesn't sound too hard to me," Jun argued.

"You can fly," the WingGabumon noted. "It is a lot easier to hide from humans in the sky than trying to walk around like this."

"You could pretend to be a little kid in a costume," her friend suggested unhelpfully.

"Yeah, a little kid with a tail," she said moving the exposed reptilian part of her body into her friend's view. The fact that was easy to do was still rather strange.

"Okay, well, is it okay if I don't turn back?" Jun asked a little predictably at that point. "I kind of don't want to be human we I get home, to show what I ended up without changing again."

Momoe considered that idea. Transforming at home was almost out of the question, but going home like this would possibly help her directly connect with Hawk. In fact that would probably be the only way she could easily talk to her younger brother while they were both digimon. "Alright, I'll try staying like this, but I want to keep the pendant until we get me home," she allowed. "That way I can get human quick if I need to."

\---

Hawkmon heard tapping on the balcony door, and since he was the only one home he went over to try and figure out who or what was there. The answer turned out to be a pair of digimon he had never seen before. One looked like a Gabumon wearing another Hawkmon's feathers, while the other was a blue version of Biyomon that had clearly lifted the other digimon to the ledge.

"Alright, who are you two and how did you get here?" he asked tiredly as he opened the glass door to let them inside before someone spotted them.

"Jun convinced me to stay like this on the way home," the Gabumon like digimon said with a voice that was fairly familiar.

"It worked didn't it, Momoe?" the bird asked, and Hawkmon realized that she had one of the new grey pendants. Which meant that the lizard monster was one of Yolei's sisters.

"Why are you both running around town as digimon?" he asked, utterly exasperated even though the situation had just begun.

"Because I want to be a digimon when I get home," the bird monster said sounding half proud of that statement.

Hawkmon didn't think that was a good reason, and Momoe seemed to shift nervously at the look he gave the pair of them. "Really?"

"Yeah," the other bird strongly said, leaning closer. "It means I get a chance to see what the world looks like to you." Jun then looked over at Yolei's sister. "I think I will head home now, you okay, Momoe?"

"I think I'll be fine," the reptile digimon replied with a nod, and then did not stop the blue bird from leaving before turning her back. So Hawkmon had to just fume as one digimon just left into the open again without restoring her.

"Yolei took her pendant with her. Mantarou convinced her to let him try it," he informed the remaining digimon darkly. "You will need to wait to change back now. I hope you weren't planning on being human anytime soon."

"I thought I wouldn't have the courage to change again after I got home," Momoe responded while giving him a serious look. "And I wanted to spend some time as a digimon with my little brother." She then looked a little nervous. "I kind of wish I'd tried to change again when I got home instead though. This city really isn't the place to be monsters in."

Now Hawkmon felt a bit bad about how he said that. "I can't imagine trying," he said trying to sound kinder.

"Should have convinced her," she agreed. "So, I ended up a WingGabumon. Any idea why I'd have an Aquilamon pelt instead of a wolf monster one?"

"Aquilamon," he said thoughtfully. "It feels familiar but I don't know what one is." He looked her over again. "Perhaps, it might be what we both would evolve into? That seems rather strange if true."

"I think I will at least," the WingGabumon agreed looking a bit relieved. "What's that like?" She actually sounded rather interested, and that worried Hawkmon.

"Momoe," he said instead of answering, and then stopped unsure of how to even start discussing whatever was happening.

"Just because we aren't doing a good job of showing it doesn't mean we don't think you're family," she said quietly before he could figure it out. She chuckled at her own statement. "Actually, it might just show how we are. Please, just let me try?"

He sighed, because this was apparently just the latest in a series of bad ideas that she had came up with today. "Okay, I'll try and explain what I know about evolution, but Yolei could probably explain it better to you."


	92. 4-1C Flameheart Champion

\--- Flameheart Champion ---

Jane's Marowak panted as their foe landed heavily, while the pokemon's flaming bone ended up used as a crutch to keep her upright. With that the Champion's pokemon was out of the match, but Jane's pokemon had exhausted herself to finish off the last of the five normal pokemon her opponent had. Everyone who made it this far knew that the final pokemon every Wendrago Champion used was one of the Legendary Glacial Dragons of Flameheart.

Winning the Tournament gave you two years to complete the Elite Four's Challenge, but in practice the only time they were guaranteed to be together for you to take on was on the week of the League Tournament and the two weeks after it ended. Typically if you didn't have the power to make it in the two weeks after your own Tournament win, you only tried during the week of the next Tournament in order to not cut into the time the new winner had for their first attempts. Those three weeks were also a time when the five opponents would all use the same team every match, so you could more easily adapt to specifically deal with their lineup. With two tries at most during any given day that was still a short amount of time to pull anything off.

Jane had taken an entire week to get her nearly monotype team to the point where she could handle four top tier themed trainers and a Champ, even with the dubious advantage of getting them ready to take on specific enemies. She didn't have a large enough team that she could swap around so she wouldn't give that same benefit to the Elite Four after all. Pyroar, Arcanine, Talonflame, and Marowak were what had made up the core of her team for a while now, although they were also the group that had been the most upset about her transformation. The Stonescale had turned out to be a very strong battler, and even evolved into a stronger form that gave her team a bit of type variety.

Pyre on the other hand had stopped being used as one of her fighting pokemon early in the Tournament battles, and only barely was up for those. Currently the Charmeleon was in the small nearly bare stands where a select few were watching this match. The other char was honestly both an annoyance and a hard topic for either of them to tackle. She knew they could have been friends once from the few times they could get along, and he seemed to know it too, but in the end they simply had too much between them now that what could have been then wasn't possible anymore. Jane had made sure to quietly get him an appointment to get a trainer card for the end of this week, but she also wasn't too concerned if that was something he would actually like to get dropped into or not.

The hardest part of the Elite Four Challenge for her was getting all the way to the Champion's last pokemon with only a team of five of her own pokemon. Wendrago were the Legendary pokemon species of the region, with all the power that implied, and she was the strongest of her entire team. Jane Felsic was a Charizard that could take on any pokemon, if she was fresh and ready. Being needed for even just one fight before the final battle could ruin her chances here. Also, just fighting herself at all still made most of her team mad, so they really didn't want her to do it at all, which was why Marowak now had a glare directed at her as she prepared to return the Fire/Ghost type.

"Well, I can't say I'm entirely surprised it came down to this," Champion Evan said with good natured exasperation as he also returned his pokemon, and then sighed. "Although it kind of sets up the conversation I need to have with you about what will likely come next."

Jane frowned at the serious tone. "Before our final pokemon?" she asked, although it sort of made sense to talk about something before she personally got into the fight.

"Before mine at least," Evan said with a bit of a laugh. "After you won the Tournament all of the Wendrago and Flameheart Champions had to get together to discuss something, and in the end we decided we would need to release videos of the Elite Four Challenges now." That got a full blink out of her, as the local League had never released the videos before, and everyone knew it was because of the fact that it was to protect the Legendary pokemon. "Do you know what the difference is between those two groups?"

"Wendrago Champions can call on a Wendrago to fight for them," Jane easily replied. "You don't know if you're going to be one or not until you head to Flameheart to see if you can find your way of calling on one. If you can't then you only get to be a Flameheart Champ."

The Champion removed a thick pouch from his belt. "Yeah, that's fairly close. I'm sad to say that we do know in this case that you won't be able to be one though," he sighed, and for a moment she saw a Frozen Flame fall from the bag into his hand. His body then shifted in a harsher variant of her own change. His skin turned into grey scales and large purple armor plate covered his arms from the elbow to the hands, his legs from his knees down, and in a thick spiked coat across his torso. A long tail grew out behind him covered in sharp purple spikes that all pointed backwards, and his hair converted into a finer set of long spikes at the back of his now reptilian head. "Because only a human can become a Wendrago," the Legendary pokemon sighed. "Since you are already a Charizard first, we're quite sure that you would simply have that form altered instead if you found a compatible Frozen Flame."

Jane took in the sight of her opponent with growing anticipation, and practically threw her pendant to the side to assume her own natural Charizard form. "Well then I'll just have to make do!" she cheered at the idea of having the perfect fight to prove herself a true Champion of the region.

\---

Jane Felsic glared at the defeated Legendary dragon, entirely unimpressed with what had just happened. "You are out of practice," she growled angrily as she shook a thin coat of ice off her wing. The fight had been far less impressive than she had expected, and so easy she outright regretted not fighting earlier because she had thought this would take all her strength.

"We've spent the last year trying to put an artificial glacier back together after some madmen decided to break it to free the creatures it was made to seal," Evan complained unsteadily from the burnt crater where he was lying on the floor. "Other than a few of those that got out I haven't had the chance to keep my own skills up for anything other than ice making." He grunted and stood up, the spikes along his head and tail clinking against each other as he flinched from one of her more physical hits. "Although I think I would have done better if you weren't trying so hard to melt me, Champion Felsic."

"I'm not getting a rematch, am I?" she asked darkly while floundering to process that simple declaration of what she was now.

"Ask again when I'm not ending a short break from making literal tons of ice by being burned up by an angry Fire type," he complained with a shake of his head. "Now I'm not as sure about releasing the video."

"I agree with that, the Latios from the Tournament did better and he was still a kid," she rumbled and moved to pick her pendant back up. She doesn't bother actually turning into a human again though, as she was an angry Charizard and that actually kept her anger in check better than if she was just an angry human.

"Yeah, with this being our first conversation after your win I think you can see why we're throwing you at the big problem we need someone to handle," her fellow Champion said jokingly.

"You're what?" she questioned, and then turned to glare at Pyre as the Charmeleon broke into laughter in the stands. "What problem is going on that I already have something to do?"

\---

A couple of days of very abbreviated instructions and introductions later Jane found herself getting ready to meet the Investigator they were sending with her to try and handle this issue. He was already directly familiar with the problem, and the others among the League felt that it would be better for someone who was working on it before to try and explain the specifics. "Investigator Ladder, it is nice to meet you," she said to the slightly nervous looking guy.

"Nice to meet you too Champion Felsic," he replied with a bit of a sigh. "I just wish we had the Investigator I had been working under with us instead. Apparently he is needed too much on his current project, so I ended up with a promotion to handle this on my own."

"I haven't been a Champ for a week yet," Jane replied good naturedly. "It should be fine. Well, depending on what exactly 'it' is here."

"Honestly, I think that's part of why they're sending just me," the Investigator said unhappily. "The issue is that a group of Chosen Ones from another world ended up getting mixed up in a fight with some criminals that got away from our world. I know the guys helping them out with that, and was part of the team that Upload escaped from." He rubbed the back of his head a bit oddly, more like a bird pokemon preening feathers than a human scratching hair. "Unfortunately that group has apparently had enough issues now that they sort of have a reputation that they turn people into pokemon."

"It's DSS isn't it?" she asked with a heavy sigh of her own. "What did you end up as?"

"It wasn't their fault, I kind of just found out it had happened in the past because of Shawn's team," Investigator Ladder said with a shake of his head, despite the fact that he had basically said the same thing that had happened to her. "My situation is also very complicated-"

"We try not to think about it too much," a Serperior suddenly cut in as she appeared out of her pokeball on the Investigator's belt. "Because one option for my trainer's situation is that he partially died to become a Decidueye Ghost."

"Fully changed into a char myself," Jane replied to the newcomer to try and settle her nerves from that bit of information, and then on a whim changed into her Charizard form.

"Shawn's Charmeleon minded Stonescale trainer," the Investigator sighed, apparently somewhat familiar with her. "How did yours work out? My old boss is doing alright with one of his own."

"It was on the team that went against the Elite Four," she proudly replied, and both the Investigator and his pokemon look very impressed with that bit of information. "So it worked out pretty well."

Investigator Ladder nodded at that, then sighed. "Well I guess we should get started on explaining what exactly we're going to be dealing with," he said, then reached down to his belt to remove something from a pouch. Or more accurately to make his human body take himself out of a pouch, which was sort of odd to see. Jane sort of regretted the long discussion she had with Marowak about identifying Ghost types and other spirits, as that probably was something he wanted to tell her instead of have her figure out herself. Once the Investigator put himself onto his face he fused together into the large bird pokemon that was probably his true form. "And I might as well understand the entire conversation. Crusher is going to be covering most of it, she has some firsthand experience with some parts I'm still a bit unclear about."

"'Crusher' huh, what kind of pokemon is she?" Jane asked as he led her to a larger area of the League built more for pokemon to be out and about.

"The same kind a Stonescale is," the Grass/Ghost replied letting out a collection of pokemon. There was a Gourgeist, a large metal-armored pokemon she didn’t recognize, and the ghost of a Flygon. At least, the pokemon looked like a Flygon, and seemed to be a Ghost. "A digital monster that has gained a type."

"Honestly Stonescales aren't quite digimon," the armored monster, presumably Crusher, clarified. "This is a long story though, so we should probably get started on that."

\---

Jane still could not understand why Pyre hadn't had any real interest in being able to fly. Being able to cut out the long parts of a journey across the region by taking to the air was nice enough with help from another pokemon, but being able to do it herself was something that made her glad to have stayed one. Alongside her Investigator Ladder, or Jack as he had insisted on being called, flew with a bit less skill. The other former human seemed to agree with her about it being a great way of traveling, even if he clearly wanted to be more of a human than he was right now.

The flight also gave her time to think about things. The overall situation was still a bit too unclear to her. Jack only knew what was happening from Shawn's reports and the insights of a turned member of Team Upload's pokemon-human hybrids. That mostly could be summarized as there being a bigger problem Shawn didn't want to put into a report. So it looked like she was dealing with criminals that she needed to save from something instead of save something from them.

As far as what information she had managed to get about her own job, the core concern of the Chosen Ones was the bigger problem for her to tackle. Their world apparently never had to deal with Chosen Ones before, so she was going to effectively be going to a land out of the distant past that still thought people like that weren't as important as they were. Jane really hoped that the League was able to get the assistance she'd asked for on that one, and hopefully before she had to meet any regional leaders from this other world.

"I'm still not really used to doing this," Jack said over the rushing air. "Flying myself that is. Flygon was handling this for us before, but since he ended up a Ghost he's been nervous about it."

"What is wrong with him being a Ghost?" she asked, even if that was a bit of a touchy topic in the best of times.

"From experience, I can say that staying solid enough to carry other things is a lot harder than it sounds," the Grass/Ghost bird replied tiredly. "So I understand fully why he has a problem with trying to carry someone else now. Admittedly we haven't been flying much at all for me to do it myself too often."

"It's really nice actually," Jane said as she spotted Shade Cross. "I had a much better time after I evolved with getting my last Gym Badge." Given that by that point she had ended up needing to take a re-challenge of a Gym she had not beaten before, she had found herself flying over the entire region in order to get it done in time for the League. Her actual team had been amused by it, but Pyre had only been annoyed with how they skipped traveling through places.

"I suppose," he allowed as they both moved to land outside of the DSS building. "Although there is the issue of turning back into a human afterward. For me at least that is a lot more awkward to deal with." He didn't actually bother doing that as they touched down. "It is harder to hide that the mask is part of me when I have to take it off in front of people."

"Jack? I didn't think you'd be flying back here anytime soon," Shawn said from the doorway, Serperior leaning on him heavily. "Are we getting Roberts for this one too?" The snake-like trainer nodded at her as well. "Champion Felsic. Congratulations on your League. I just wish things weren't going so badly that we already needed your help."

"Make it up to me by giving me a fight with your Legendary form," she suggested half jokingly. The two headed monster she had first seen along this road would probably be a better fight than the Wendrago, despite any type disadvantages.

Shawn didn't look too happy about the suggestion though. "Damn, we probably have to try that," the red eyed trainer complained. "We have enemies that might get stronger than that form, and you will need to be ready just in case. No confirmed living enemies of that level yet, but it is only a matter of time."

"I think Gazimon did say he'd managed to reinforce one of the digital worlds enough for us to practice that in," Serperior agreed unhappily. "First things first, though, we need to get you up to date on the situation."

"So, what the hell is Upload doing?" Jack asked a touch harshly. "Because Adrian says that the reports don't make any sense at all. Their plan was to jump two or three times before stopping."

"What if they were worried about a digimon an entire stage stronger than an Ultimate using this 'Emperor' as a pawn to revive themselves from the dead?" the two of them asked darkly. "Upload is trying to keep the enemy forces tied up thinking that we can't beat them while we work out how to deal with that problem. So far we're keeping quiet about that to most of the Digidestined, although two of the older ones are in on the full situation."

"We're in a complicated problem then," Jane sighed at that with a shake of her head and folded her wings. "You're definitely giving me that match then."

\---

There was an entire separate world that was currently in a state of outright war, and their only ally in the conflict was pretending to be another enemy to distract from the fact that they could not get as strong as the Chosen Ones. Chosen Ones that had already dealt with the leader of the enemy faction before, but had to give up the power they used to do it in order to rebuild this separate world. Which was not the world that these 'Digidestined' were even from, as that was a world that didn't even have any monsters at all.

"It is still going to be a couple of days before I can get representatives here from the League," Jane grimly informed the group. "I asked for an ambassador for the League overall and someone to represent the international police, but it almost sounds like I'm going to need to get an entire diplomatic team to handle this mess."

"I'm not the biggest fan of keeping things quiet from their government myself," Janice agreed as they looked over the two world maps inside of the Troubleshooter Lab. "But until we have the people to handle that properly our focus is on the enemy forces in the digimon world."

"The digimon world doesn't really have leaders to talk to as far as I know. Unless they managed to find some before the Emperor decided to try and be one," Gazimon added with a huff. "So without anyone else to handle that it looks like the Digidestined might have to set a government up."

"I don't need that world to have a full government, just something like the League that steps in when big problems happen is enough," the new League Champion clarified. "Especially with how this apparently isn't the first time they've had a bunch of kids recruited out of nowhere." She shifted around a bit, and considered that it probably was about time to be human for a while again. "Were they really under League age?"

The DSS team looked uneasy about that topic. "If what we've worked out is right then all of the humans of their world actually take longer to grow up than we do," Grant admitted quietly from the edge of the room, earning a glare from his amphibian trainer. "The new kids are still only barely at the age to enter the League now, and they're from a world where humans don't mature as fast as someone from our world."

"You're kidding," she said bluntly. They did not respond by saying that they were. "Right, we're pretending that isn't true, even if it is. That is the kind of mess that would totally wreck our ability to actually support them."

"It hopefully isn't as bad as it sounds," Shawn noted without much uncertainty. "So far at least the Digidestined have been able to handle what we've tried to help them work on, and their families are helping actively."

"I think that the bigger problem is that I can't really tell who we need to be talking to about this in that world," Jack contributed, in his human form with his mask body back in the pouch he apparently kept himself in. "I mean, are we really going to have to talk to the entire government of this 'Japan' set of islands? That is a massive place, I can't imagine all of those regions trying to talk to us at once."

"That is probably something we need to ask the locals about," Janice complained. "I haven't managed to figure that out yet, it is just this thing that has been around so long for them that they get confused when we try asking about it." The Team Leader sighed. "We actually have run into a lot of problems with that kind of thing."

Jane rubbed her head between her horns with annoyance. "Alright, I want to talk with one of the two that knows the whole situation for a while before starting any work on this, is that going to be an option?" she asked in an attempt to focus on what she could deal with instead of complaining about what she couldn't.

"One of those, Joe Kido, is now working for Delta 2 in Box 201," Gazimon said a touch bluntly. "Actually he is there right now, and probably a human."

"Yeah, that specification there is why you got me instead of a fully qualified Investigator," Jack grumbled. "What kind of monster has he been spending time as?"

"Delta 2 has just finished working on trinkets to transform people into digimon, so naturally he's spent most of today as a Floatzel," Serperior glibly noted. "His partner has been complaining about it," the snake pokemon continued a bit more seriously. "So Gomamon would probably appreciate interrupting that."

"I think I'll let the guy have a bit more of a break then," Jane sighed. "So, how about that match instead?"

\---

"Jane, what in the hell made you think this was a good idea?" her Pyroar asked after the two Poison augmented Serperiors fused into a building sized two headed monster.

"Threat level, Ultimate, identified," her Stonescale Soldier said dully. "Retreat advised."

"Okay, Jane, the robot just said to run," Marowak said with atypical unease. "I think that might mean we're in over our heads."

"Guys, this is a practice match to specifically tell if that kind of threat is over our heads," Jane complained about her team's unhappy response. They had moved to a rather bare looking digital world, which was little more than a massive box of a concrete like material. Said material was cracking and shifting easily around the massive root like form of Basirablemon, who like before was threaded into the ground instead of resting on top of it. "Besides, we're a Champion team now, which means working together to deal with problems normal pokemon can't."

All five of her teammates, even her Stonescale, looked at her with unhappy disbelief.

"Alright," the two headed serpent said in a dual voice. "We are going to be holding back, mostly because you were actually there the last time we got a chance to try this, and we do not know how to properly control our attacks yet."

"Are they one person or two right now?" Arcanine asked attempting to be quiet.

"We're two people right now," the red eyed head rumbled with annoyance. "And I've barely done anything as this compared to Serp, so that actually does matter. Be sure to stay safe when dealing with my attacks."

"Although we are ready when you are!" the other head said happily.

Jane looked over her team to judge how ready they were. The five of them were nervous, but she could see that they would go on her order. "Let's go," she said as she flapped into the air, with her team scattering immediately in anticipation of the blob of toxic goo that slammed into the ground where they had been. "Ha! Like we wouldn't expect that!"

The two headed snake simply laughed at that, and suddenly the entire world was made of threats. A mixture of clouds of leaves, swinging vines, and splashes of poison were hazards that she had to somehow help her teammates avoid while striking back. Jane started off by strafing the blue eyed head with a blast of flames that seemed to only slightly bother the Legendary. She saw her Talonflame mirror this with the red eyed one, and grimaced at how little effect that had as they should have a good type advantage.

"This is an entire forest against us, Jane, not a pokemon," Pyroar complained just before attempting to wrap flame covered teeth around part of their opponent's main body. This didn't work very well, as between the massive size of Basirablemon and the dripping pools of toxin the flames did not cover very much space for very long at all.

"You know, he was kind of a jerk, but for something like this Magmar might have helped," Marowak said as the Fire/Ghost type used a fairly complicated dodge that the team had worked on. Her club remaining solid for her to hang onto as the Bone Keeper rendered her technically Ghostly body intangible to fall through the floor and out of the way of a barrage of cutting leaves before swinging back up above the ground. "Although, admittedly he didn't do too well for the other guy during the League," the pokemon admitted as she emerged again to try throwing her flaming bone at some of the large leaves along their foe's body.

\---

"So, what do you think?" Janice asked Joe as they all watched the match from the safety of the Troubleshooter Lab, with Gazimon providing a number of camera angles on the arena on the six monitors.

"I think you guys still have a bit of a different standard for fighting than we do," the Digidestined of Reliability sighed as the circuitry covered lizard monster collapsed the ground under Shawn's head to distract the Ultimate. "We'd have been toast if any of the Ultimate digimon fought like those two are. Even the Megas preferred to take things a little bit slower than that."

"Downside there is that is all small stuff," Gazimon noted. "Probably more than enough to wear out Champions quick, but I'm not sure how well they'd do against another Ultimate." The rabbit monster shook his head. "So a good backup for us to have against our current problems, but maybe not a solution to any new ones we run into."

"Yeah, right sure. They definitely don't have any real big attacks that can handle some other Ultimate," Gomamon sarcastically remarked. Then the seal digimon flinched at the strong coordinated fire blast that Jane's team quickly and wordlessly pulled off while still avoiding almost everything that was coming at them. "I kind of get why you guys were waiting for one of your human 'Champions' now though, because they're surviving something that would have gotten all of us trashed."

"It isn't as bad as that mess with those weather changing monsters, but this is more focused," Joe admitted, and then cringed at Pyroar taking a good hit from a vine larger than she was. Thanks to Arcanine quickly moving her away the cat pokemon was out of the path of the follow-up blob of poison before it could hit her, but it was still the worst hit on the fiery team yet. "I think I can see why they haven't used this in the digimon world yet, that would probably attract a lot more attention than we could handle."

\---

"Jane, do we have a real plan for this?" Pyroar complained while the Stonescale set off a fairly massive storm of lightning strikes. The move had seemed overly flashy and widespread before, but against Basirablemon it was honestly a bit too small for once.

"Keep them distracted while we coordinate hits, and hope that works before they figure out how we're doing that," the Charizard replied harshly, and then sent a razor sharp gust of wind at the red eyed head to keep it down. "Also be thankful that they're holding back the big attacks and work out how to dodge those in a real fight against something like this."

That actually did hold out for three more attempts, which had finally been enough to make the massive root snake start looking tired. Unfortunately by that point Jane's team had each taken at least one good hit themselves, and it was clear which side could outlast the other.

"Alright," the blue eyed head of Basirablemon said soon after that final blow, while Jane was busy extracting Marowak from a sticky glob that the Fire/Ghost type had barely failed to dodge. "That's as far as we can go."

"Any more than this and we're probably going to start hitting too hard," the red eyed head agreed with a flinch as the large scorched area along his neck had a few burned up pieces crack off and clatter to the floor. "Not to mention that we still need some strength to try and clean this place up."

"Don't worry about that, Shawn," Gazimon's voice cut in. "I was planning on doing some analysis of the after effects of you two fighting in there." There was a pause as the two sides started to calm down and get themselves organized. "Mostly to check and make sure there won't be any long term issues with using that form in the digimon world."

"Glad to know that could be a problem," Basirablemon said in the dual tone of both its heads saying the same thing. Then the massive serpent vanished, replaced with two rather thorny looking Serperiors. "Oh, right, stuck like this now," the twin snakes still said together despite being separated.

"That was much better than my Champion match," Jane declared strongly, resulting in a deep sigh from the rest of her team.


	93. 4-1D Proper Introductions

\--- Proper Introductions ---

Davis rushed to look over his homework before he had to leave, hoping that nothing would be too hard to get done in the free time he had left. Today the Digidestined were going to get to meet the new Pokemon Champion. Well, most of them, Joe had spoken with her the day before when she got started working with DSS.

"So, you're meeting more people from that other world right?" Jun asked curiously, and sighed. "If I wasn't grounded for flying around town I'd ask to come along."

"Well 'BlueBiyomon' maybe you should have thought about that before you did it," Davey said, and he sounded as annoyed as Davis was about what she had done out of the blue. Tai had been upset with him because of how letting her have the pendent had turned out.

"It was fine," she grumbled. "Nobody seemed to notice."

"Sure they didn't," he said darkly. Tai had told him that the TV station was faking a report about the pair of them to cover things up. Then he sighed as he realized just how much homework he had piled up now. "I wish I could make a better impression," he complained, half meaning that he didn't want that mistake as the first thing the Champion heard about him. "It's that Jane girl, the dragon from the League matches, and she managed to win that really hard trial they do even though it was only her first League."

"The orange one with the tail that was on fire?" his sister asked suspiciously. "Alright then, I won't ruin your first impression," she teased him. "She was cute after all."

"What, no it isn't like that," Davis said embarrassed about the implication. "She's just a strong fighter. You saw how well she did in that match against the giant gator monster. She managed to use that purple fire and her claws to take that water spitting lizard down." It had been amazing to see how strong someone could get, and being able to meet that powerful pokemon was something he was excited about.

"Oh? Sounds like you might want to be a Flamedramon to show off your own flames?" Jun asked him, not letting up on the joke. "You both have that in common."

Now Davis wished he had learned Acid Armor so he could just melt onto the floor. The worst part was that the Champion's human form was cute, and he could also see that her dragon form was in the kind of shape he wanted to be in himself. However, he was trying to avoid the problem that he'd gotten himself into with Kari, so he was trying to think that kind of thing out instead of just going with whatever popped into his head.

\---

"Come'on, Boss, it's a Champ. Ya have ta bring me along to meet her!" Sneasel argued strongly as they prepared to leave for the Digidestined base. T.K. honestly felt a bit bad for the pokemon, who clearly wanted more to do even if he couldn't really find anything. "At least let me tag along to meet her? Ya don't have to bring me to that world you're spending all your time fighting in."

"He's trying to trick you," Patamon said a bit unnecessarily. The way the pokemon quickly lost his sorrowful look told that well enough. "Again."

"Hmph, I still want to meet her, see what kind of trainer it takes to make it that far," the Dark pokemon responded being called out.

"Looks like the dragon kind to me," T.K. noted. "Big, orange, tail on fire. She even fought this other blue and white dragon that looked kind of like an airplane."

Sneasel looked at him with considerable confusion. "Do you mean a Charizard? Because they aren't actually Dragons," the pokemon criticized, and then blinked as he clearly thought through the rest. "Wait, that other one sounds like a Latios, those are Legendary pokemon. You've actually seen her pokemon go up against a Legendary?"

"No, we saw her go up against one," Patamon corrected. "Turned into a Charizard and then got in a one on one fight herself."

"I take it back, I'm Ice typed and not going anywhere near that strong a Fire typed trainer," Sneasel quickly said and hopped away from the doorway a good distance, and T.K. decided to try something.

"Oh, but you're right. This is probably the safest time we're going to have to take you to the digimon world," the Digidestined of Hope said with a wide smile. "After all, she should know how to keep you safe a lot better than I do."

\---

Tai looked over the Digidestined base, and then took a deep breath to try to stop worrying about every small thing he spotted that wasn't quite perfect. Like the out of place captured production line, or the makeshift sign for Joe's pool, or the fact that they didn't have anything to wear that looked better than their school uniforms and normal outfits, at least nothing that was also sturdy enough to handle a trip to the digimon world.

"Calm down, Tai," Agumon quietly said to him. "We'll do great."

"You know, this place actually looks like it belongs to a serious group now," Sora said thoughtfully. "It still doesn't seem quite real that it's ours."

It took a moment for Tai to realize that was true, because by this point he had been working on leading the group for long enough that going to school was starting to feel like the odd part of his day. In fact School was actually something he had become increasingly worried about exposing them, since he knew that he had already accidentally turned in one of his Digidestined reports instead of the actual homework. Explaining that as a group game he was playing with friends probably wouldn't hold up if monsters started attacking the human world again, and he was going to have to get everyone on the same page with that excuse if they started having the same problem.

"Yeah, it is kind of odd to go into a high tech base like this, and that's before you remember that it is ours," Matt agreed. "This is the kind of place we saw that younger Gennai working in."

"Hopefully we can protect it better," Izzy commented. "Although I'm not planning on making any digimon here." Despite saying that Tai had found an entire page worth of notes that touched on how to do that in Izzy's report. He had asked for a new report focused on just that to know what the genius was able to actually do with what they had.

"Guys, she's going to be here soon," Joe dryly noted, and that ended the conversation so they once more simply waited for the Champion to arrive.

Just a moment later a bright flash appeared in the area Izzy had set aside for teleporting in and out of the base. This revealed a familiar looking girl, and a guy they didn't recognize. Jane Felsic was a bit shorter than he had expected in person, and it took seeing her in the flesh for Tai to realize he had spent the past couple of days waiting for a 12 year old. The other guy looked about Shawn's age, which still felt a bit young, but by this point Tai had no room to complain about that.

"Whoa, nice place," the Champion said as she looked them all over. "Champion Jane Felsic, and this is Investigator Ladder." She motioned to the other arrival.

"Call me Jack. You guys already know my old rival, Shawn, so it would be awkward to hear 'Investigator' all the time," the newly introduced Investigator greeted them. "Not to mention I still don't like how fast they promoted me," Jack then mumbled.

Tai looked at the guy critically, remembering Matt's short-lived attempt at 'rivalry' with him and trying to place who was who between this guy and Shawn. "Good to meet you, Taichi Yagami," he introduced himself. "This is Agumon." The digimon nodded and the other digidestined took over their own introductions. Mimi was the only one missing, apparently her new friends had somehow roped her into traveling even further away to reach a place with another fashion show thing before she came back home.

"Wow, maybe we should introduce our teams too?" Jane suggested to Jack, and then let out her own collection of monsters. There was a large stone lizard covered in circuit patterns, a darker colored version of Cody's grandfather's pokemon form, a lion like monster with a single long ponytail of red and yellow fur, a large red and black bird, and finally a massive red dog with black stripes. "These are Stonescale, Marowak, Pyroar, Talonflame, and Arcanine."

"Yeah, might as well get that out of the way," the guy agreed, although his group was even stranger. There was a carved pumpkin, like from Halloween, a green dragon thing with pale purple markings that floated through the floor for a moment before setting down on it, and there was a Monochromon right there alongside them. The most normal looking one was another plant snake like Serperior. "This is Strangle, Slasher's sister," Jack introduced the snake, although Tai couldn't quite place who 'Slasher' was. "Vibration, he's a Flygon." That was for the dragon, which looked a bit nervous. "Smile, my Gourgeist." The pumpkin monster, which admittedly was smiling. "And Crusher, who you guys probably recognize, but the whole story is kind of complicated."

"I used to be a Gazimon once upon a time," the digimon rumbled jokingly. "Then I got resurrected into someone else’s body. Admittedly they weren't using it anymore. Kinda like Tyra's arm, but for all of me."

"His team has a bit of a 'used to be dead' theme," Jane joked. "While I'm a Fire typed trainer." She punctuated that statement by turning into her dragon form.

Jack sighed at this display. "Alright, might as well," the Investigator said before taking a wooden mask out of a pouch on his belt. It looked odd, and Tai could see that he wasn't the only one that was getting an ominous feeling from the bird shaped mask. So he was half expecting it when the thing turned the guy into a giant owl monster. "I'm a Decidueye too, but my team is really, really complicated." His snake monster hissed something at him. "I barely want to talk about it at all, Strangle, I'm not making it clear that you’re our only teammate that might not have died before," the owl said to her, and got another angrier hiss back. "I've seen how crazy we've gone so far, so I'm just waiting to see how you had a past life."

"Uh," Tai said as one of their new help actually started getting into a minor argument with his monster.

"Going better than I expected the first meeting," Jane complained with a huff of purple flames. "I think we can skip any other really serious stuff for now."

"You were awesome in the League," Davis said with only a hint of a rush, clearly the member of the team most willing to jump in to talk. "I made sure to watch all of your matches." Tai managed to avoid sighing at the younger leader possibly having a crush on a dragon now. T.K. was less composed and put his hand over his face, and there were a couple of giggles from the girls.

"Oh, thank you," the Champion replied sounding a bit embarrassed. "I'd like to be happy that they're going to actually release the Elite Four Challenge this time around, but I kind of ended up not doing as well as I could have there." She huffed again. "Didn't really get to fight myself." Her team of monsters sighed loudly at this statement, and Tai was suddenly worried that his own problems were a lot more common than he hoped in the pokemon world.

\---

"So, are you a pokemon that turns into a human, or a human that turns into a pokemon?" a Sandshrew asked her, and Jane had to wonder if all of them had as weird of a past as she did.

"That's, actually really complicated," she admitted with a frown. "I was a human originally, but then I ended up turned into a pokemon."

"Huh, I didn't think that would end up being a common thing," the Ground type noted, and Jane wished that she had not just given the smaller pokemon the wrong impression. Then she thought about how he could be right about that, and worried that she might not have actually done so, and that was somehow even worse. "How do you deal with having to clean up without using water as much? I've been having some trouble and mom says that Fire types have to worry about that too."

That was at least a topic she could help someone else who ended up a pokemon with. "It can be really annoying, although given what you are you'll probably find the most common method a lot easier to pull off. Sand baths, use the grit to scrape everything off your scales. It still was a bit unpleasant for me before I got my wings, but better than water," she said. "I've heard that Ground types typically use Sandstorms like humans use showers."

"Huh, we'd need to reinforce the apartment a lot to do that, but maybe it would work," Cody replied with a happy nod. Then the smaller pokemon looked a little nervous. "Uh, how do you handle. How do you handle not actually being a human around them?"

That was a hard question, but an important one. "Mostly by pretending I still am one when I'm around them," she admitted quietly. "That's pretty easy for me, because I actually thought like a pokemon despite being a human for a long time. Most people assume that I still think of myself as human too, like mom and my brother Jim." She paused for a moment. "Okay, Jim hasn't actually been human since the change because of his new job as an actor, but I can tell he still thinks more human like."

"I think I get that. Davis spends a lot of time as a Flamedramon now, but he's still fairly human, and Yolei can only really handle digimon forms that are a lot like humans," the Digidestined replied, and Jane wondered how 'form' was plural for them. "But, it is weird. Things have changed for me, but when I turn into a human again they don't change back, and for a lot of those things I'm not really trying too hard to go back to doing. So far at least nobody seems to have really noticed."

"Yeah, I kind of had that issue," Jane admitted. "Although in my case it was doing things like a pokemon when I wasn't one. We actually had a few problems with that, but, well we didn't know I was thinking like a pokemon so we just tried to adapt. Well, actually we tried a lot of things to keep me from getting myself lit on fire, which probably would have been bad." She paused to consider how 'probably' was possibly accurate all things considered. "For a lot of it everyone just thought it was being quirky. Grant can probably tell you some things about that too, he had entire medical issues that were dismissed as him 'being quirky'."

"I, didn't consider it like that," Cody said thoughtfully. "There are quite a few things my mom does that I do too that make more sense now, but those aren't really what I was thinking about." He looked down at his claws. "I wonder if the stuff I meant might just be things I know I can think about now."

"Yeah, my entire training style is like that. My brother never understood why I liked doing that personally, and that made a lot more sense after we found out that I thought like a Char," she agreed.

\---

Yolei had watched the older Digidestined all start questioning the digimon that had shown up about various things nervously. That didn't fully distract her from the dragon girl talking with Cody, and she really wished that she had not drifted close enough to overhear the two of them talking about not being human. Some of the odd things Cody had done as long as she'd known him did make more sense now, but it was awkward to think about them actually being signs that he wasn't really human in the first place.

It also made her wonder if she had changed since being switched with Hawkmon, and just had not noticed. The only thing that came to her mind was a consideration of where she could fly if she wanted to, but that didn't really seem all that big of a change.

"It is generally hard to tell what is 'normal'," a voice suddenly said from behind her, and she quickly turned to find the bird monster. "Ah, sorry. Ghost types have problems with being a bit tricky. I try and avoid that, but, well it's hard to resist the temptation."

Yolei simply glared at Jack for a moment, before considering her question for the dragon girl. "My family is having a lot of problems with this monster thing. How we're changing into them, and Hawkmon being one all the time," she tried to explain, and checked to make sure her brother wasn't too close. "Things aren't going the best between me and him. Our middle sister even turned herself into a digimon for an afternoon to try and help and I just don't know if that is what I need to do to connect with him."

Jack simply looked at her for a moment. "Well, I can try and tell you what I've gone through getting back in my starter's good graces," he said cautiously. "I kind of wish we had a translator for our pokemon around so Strangle could help too. She'd at least be able to give the other perspective on that topic." Said snake monster hissed at him, and Yolei could sort of understand how not knowing exactly what she was saying could make that tougher. "Okay, yeah I could translate for you, but that isn't quite the same."

"That might work actually," Yolei told them, happy to just possibly have some help. "So, does turning into a pokemon too help?"

"No," Jack said and it was quite clear that Strangle said the same thing, and if anything the snake emphasized that statement more. "I don't particularly like being a monster, and Strangle outright hates that I keep ending up in situations where I'm one. You shouldn't assume that being the same creature means you can understand each other better, even if it is the only way you can actually understand your partner's words."

"Yeah, it does not help you connect with someone very well," Jane added, apparently having heard their conversation. "If anything it made my attempts to deal with a rock headed Charmeleon worse, and it did not help that he barely acknowledged that me being like this was his fault in the first place." The dragon girl smirked evilly, and Cody looked a little uneasy. "He's dealing with me saddling him with some humanity now as a bit of payback. A trainer card and an appointment to get himself a starter of his own."

Jack and Strangle both looked a bit intimidated by that, so apparently it was a fairly harsh thing. The snake monster then asked a question, which got a growled response from the Champion. "Yeah, but it still is a bit of a thing to just throw someone into," Jack said, following the suddenly incomprehensible conversation.

"So, two of our siblings spending a while as a digimon probably isn't going to help much?" Yolei asked to remind them that she was there. Her mom had for some reason decided that Momoe needed to be stuck as a digimon while she was grounded at home to punish her for running around town as one, and Mantarou apparently felt his Hagurumon form was somehow better suited to running the family's new storage world.

"'Our'?" Jane questioned, making the Digidestined realize that these two might not really understand the whole situation.

"Ah, well it turned out that Hawkmon was kind of a clone of me, sorta, so that means he's a brother too," Yolei quickly explained, embarrassed about missing the main problem.

"Huh, that's a whole different problem," Jack replied, and Strangle looked like she wanted out of the conversation. "I don't have any siblings, so that's something I can't really help with." The snake hissed out a statement that Yolei did not need translated, she had met Strangle's brother after all. Possibly brothers if both of them counted.

"Hmm, did Hawkmon have any siblings before?" Jane asked thoughtfully. "Because I've met a lot of people who assume having a brother around all the time is a lot different than it actually is."

"Oh," Yolei said dumbly as the concept hit her. "No, he didn't have any before." She had not even considered what it would be like to not have siblings and then suddenly be buried in a full sized family. "I didn't even think about that," she said sadly, and decided on what to do next. "I'll try and explain that to him, what it is like. Well, at least explain that we aren't actually treating him all that differently." Especially since everyone in the family seemed to be having problems with everything going on.

\---

Tai was glad the introduction had gone well, and hoped that the planned attack on another of the Emperor's R&D sites later would be a good demonstration of what they were up against in practice. For now he needed to go over the strategic situation with the Champion and the Investigator, hopefully with help from Izzy but it was possible that the boy genius would need to help Davis with getting everyone ready for the fight.

"So, we've seen the basic reports that got passed along, and we've spoken with Shawn about his perspective, but what I want to hear is your actual problems," Jack said tiredly as the bird took the odd mask off and turned human again as it was put it away.

"Mostly trying to figure out what you don't want us to smash for you, because it sounds like there is a lot of stuff I can handle," Jane added as she also returned to humanity.

"Myotismon is the real threat," Tai started off as he motioned for them to follow him to his new desk. "From what DSS has said about this 'Absol' monster's abilities I'm fairly sure that Upload is actually trying to distract everyone more than anything until they can just take him out all at once." He grabbed his own report on everything from the bottom of the smallest pile, where he hoped that none of the others had thought to look so far. "The Digimon Emperor is either a minion of Myotismon, or of another of his minions. Which would be bad enough, but from that I for one think that just defeating the Emperor isn't a good plan right now."

"How strong is this 'Myotismon'? Because Shawn's holding back an 'Ultimate' form on you guys," Jane said as she took the papers. "Is that strong enough?"

"It took about eight Ultimates to take him down the first time, and two Megas and a prophecy the second," he told her bluntly, although he wondered what exactly Serperior became as an Ultimate. He was fairly sure that it wasn't Gazimon they were talking about.

The two of them looked up at him, and then after a moment seemed to realize he was serious as they paled. "Wait, wait, that's what we're up against here? How many Ultimates do we have?" the Champion asked in a rush.

"If Shawn has that option, right now? One," Tai sighed. "We might be able to track down some digimon that are already at that level, but that doesn't solve the real issue." Luckily Izzy was on his way over, so he could get some help with this whole mess. "So what we really need is to find a way to get ourselves back to that level, or even better to get our Megas back."

"Which is where things get tricky," Izzy said as he arrived. "From our current analysis we have found three possible options available to Myotismon using the Emperor's efforts, with hints of others we have not yet identified. The first, and most obvious in retrospect, is that the Spires were disrupting the barriers between the digimon world and human world. That likely would have allowed the spirit of Myotismon to get back in a way that would allow resurrection." Tai quickly looked for the second drafts of those reports from Izzy.

"Upload's lockdown of travel hasn't actually impacted us much, which didn't make any sense," Tai explained. "Unless we weren't the ones they were trying to stop. They frankly haven't been paying very much attention to us at all, so we should have expected that it was something to counter the Emperor." He managed to find the two reports for threats they hadn't gotten to yet, but the one about at issue was apparently somewhere else on his desk.

"Okay, there is an entire list of problems with something that damages the barriers between worlds," Jack said with a huff. "With the biggest one being that it could damage or destroy a lot of other worlds in an extreme case, and I really hope that I'm going too far with that one."

"Yeah, I have some suspicions on that one, but I'll need more information before I can pin down how exactly Upload is locking it down," Izzy replied to that statement as Tai finally found the last one to give the group. "The second option is that Myotismon is planning on recharging or improving himself by using the Control Spires to gather lots of energy from the digimon world. They are already doing that passively, and it would explain why he'd want to keep things quiet while that was setup."

"Let me guess, they can ramp that up at any time and we need to not spook them," Jane complained as she took the files and set his overall report back on the desk.

"Pretty much, even if he isn't able to use that to power up it is still a risk for the world until we can disable them all," Tai confirmed, probably even more upset with that issue. They couldn't risk just going straight for the Emperor himself with that looming over their heads, or it might take out all the still enslaved digimon along with most of the captured parts of the digimon world. "The last option is the obvious one, if the Emperor conquers the digimon world for him then he doesn't have any threats around when he goes back there."

"This isn't a one or the other situation is it? It is all three at once," the Investigator asked with a sigh. "Right, so what can we do to get the kind of power that deals with that?"

"In the short term? Not a lot. We have some information on where we can get one replacement for a Crest, and if we can keep things stable long enough I can make more, but that still only gets us to Ultimate," the Digidestined of Knowledge explained. "To hit Mega we'd probably need Tai and Matt to somehow take back the power we gave up to help repair the digimon world. Either that or find another way of going past what the Crest boost can give us."

\---

Jane was a bit intimidated with how together everyone she was dealing with now was, with professional reports, a fully functional base, and even a rough chain of command that let them setup this attack while she was getting informed of the larger picture. Admittedly it wasn't as intimidating as the fact that every last one of the humans on the mission had turned into monsters, herself included, but it did make her feel better about how much work she would need to put into getting this group up to forming their own League equivalent. Jack had stayed behind there to get some of those things settled with the older part of the team.

The kind of cute looking fire lizard that was leading them had ordered the bug girl with lots of problems to scout the place quickly to make sure that more forces had not been brought to the base. Which left her with the black cat, the two winged horses, the two lizard men, the human faced cat-bird, the bird monster, and the two drill bugs. "You guys using this temporary powerup is still odd," she commented as she rechecked the way her equipment sat on her Charizard form. Wings made a massive change to where you could actually put stuff so it didn't mess with your movement.

"That's just how Digidestined work," Davis said calmly, although he continued to look around for any possible threats. "Well, not the part where we turn from human to digimon, that's mostly because of Upload and DSS, but just having our partners power up is normal."

"Turning into monsters is definitely not normal," Jane said strongly, mostly so that she could get it out of the way. "I know I can do it too, but that just means I have that DSS issue in common with all of you."

"It wasn't really DSS's fault," Cody noted as Yolei appeared over the ridge that they were hidden behind.

"Wasn't their fault when my dad decided to mouth off to an angry Ghost either, but I was at their place when that happened," she said quickly to finish that conversation before the fight began.

"It looks better than we heard," the bug monster told the group with a tone that made clear that Yolei did not trust that assessment. "I think they might have sent out the group they were working on already."

"That's fine," Davis told her. "The Emperor shouldn't have had time to move out the big computers and stuff yet, and if there aren't as many enemies we might be able to capture some more."

"Sounds good to me," Jane told them. "What exactly are we up against? My team is trained for battle right now, so we might not be well suited to dealing with these mind control collars." She looked over at Takeru. "Also I want to try and let your Sneasel at least see a normal battle for you guys. It should help give him an idea on what you're fighting, and why you don't want him there yet."

"Looks like it is just a small number of slaves, and a lot more of those robot things that he seems to have started making," Yolei informed them. "The new small camera drones that aren't even as strong as a Rookie, along with some assembly machines that are actually moving around. It's like he's trying to copy Upload."

"Then we should really make sure to take the computer," Cody said firmly. "That way we can find out how much he can copy."

That seemed to be enough for the group to move on the site, which was a mess of quickly and cheaply made prefabricated parts as far as Jane could tell. Stuff like what her brother was now using as sets for his film career, old outdated things that were simple to make but not as good as modern equivalents. The machines were fairly nice, better than she'd seen outside of Salient City's more high tech areas, but still looked a bit too primitive overall. Which made the whole thing feel off, because from what the reports had said this kind of thing was really advanced or otherworldly stuff to the Digidestined.

The actual fight started quickly, although the tricky part was clear. There were a mix of low level monsters, and League level ones, all controlled by the strange black rings and trio of large obelisks. Jane had her team out, but more to keep a lookout for any other threats and guard the Dark/Ice typed pokemon. "Heh, didn't realize my boss was turning into a mon too," Sneasel said to her with false bravado.

"I think you have a long way to go to be even up to his level," Pyroar said critically. "He is more hesitant than his Starter, and clearly less practiced in that form than the other humans, but still a strong fighter." The cat pokemon shot Jane a dark look, clearly still upset about how she turned into a pokemon.

"Hmph, I can handle myself," Sneasel sneered at them, but at least was smart enough to not charge in to try and help.

"I'm less happy with things," her overly lazy Talonflame complained. "This looks like a lot more work, and I was sure that you learning to fly yourself around meant I'd have less of that."

"Self replication equipment is within tolerances for Stonescale production," her digital pokemon intoned with a noticeable amount of unease. Given that just getting Stonescale to talk was rare that was something to pay attention to. "Line setup is currently operating using unknown mineral result, but similar construction purpose." It focused on one of the Control Spires. "Tower is of same mineral, operating on more advanced settings. Conversion between the two implementations likely available."

"Well, that was terrifying," Marowak joked unsuccessfully. "This place reminds you of where you're from then?"

"Correct, unknown mineral constructs appear to serve same function Stonescales served," it actually replied. "Constructs likely lack mental capacities without controller, as we did."

That was a horrible concept for Jane to consider. That one of the sides in this fight was made of creatures like her teammate, and that they were just killing them to fight the enemy. "Should we try and find a way to stop destroying them?" she asked, more questioning what they could do than if they should do anything.

"No," Stonescale replied with atypical strength. "If have strong enough mind can be reasoned with, if not then will not have enough to act without control. Until control removed too dangerous to others to leave alive."

The response clearly didn't sit well with any of her team, and T.K.'s Sneasel was simply staring at it with horror. However, it was the most animated she had ever seen the monster, and if it felt that strongly about this then she had to at least consider the option seriously.

\---

The fight had not really been much of one, and taking out the three Spires had been enough to resolve things entirely. Izzy had been a bit upset to have to capture even more gear, but had quickly changed his mind when he actually got a look at what they had found. Then he had been adamant that they made it look like the destroyed everything even though they were taking it.

"I really hope I didn't turn in my report for us to my teacher this morning," Cody muttered uneasily as the Digidestined all broke up to head for their homes. "Mom's been having extra training sessions, so it's been easy to mix things up."

"If you did then say it is from a game we're playing after school," Tai dully told the pokemon. "Is that stuff really safe, Izzy?"

"Safer than the production line was at first," the Digidestined of Knowledge complained. "We have it secured and actually spotted the tracking devices this time, including a couple new ones. From what we've seen it looks like they would have expected us to take it to our world instead of this other digital one, so they aren't even able to transmit properly." He sighed and then began to work on getting everyone home.

"Boss, I want in on real training," Sneasel said to T.K. seriously as they made their way to the teleporter. "I don't want to just sit around doing nothin while you're out there in danger. It just ain't right for you to fight more than your pokemon." This declaration got a strong and embarrassing cheer from Jane's entire team of pokemon.

"Alright," the Digidestined of Hope responded with exasperation, and a cautious look over at the Flameheart Champion as they vanished while she tried to argue against the point with her pokemon.

"If I knew how to get Momoe out of being stuck as a digimon I'd have done it already," Hawkmon complained to his sister as they moved forward to leave next. "Or even better a good reason for why Mantarou doesn't need to be a collection of gears to run a warehouse."

"Yeah, I know," Yolei agreed. "I mean, I don't even understand why mom thinks that will work. Being a digimon isn't even something Momoe seems uncomfortable with, and at this point it's almost normal for us." The pair then also left, clearly still in the middle of the conversation.

"So, I'll check and see if I still have it," Cody said to Tai after the room cleared out.

"Alright," the Digidestined of Courage tiredly replied just before the Sandshrew left as well. "So, what do you think?"

"You guys need more help, but I'm not sure where to start," Jane replied, her pokemon returned to their balls. "Other than trying to get in contact with the local government to see if I can get you some real funding for this, or at least make it easier for you to set something up to support yourselves." She sighed at his uneasy look. "I'll want you there with me, and I'm bringing along some people from my world with actual experience with that sort of thing. Worst case if everything goes badly we'll just have to conquer the city for you guys."

"That's not really that funny," Tai informed her.

"No? Why would it be funny?" she asked, completely serious. "It's the worst case scenario, where you guys need to protect yourselves from the local government the hard way. I seriously doubt it would be that bad, but well, prepare for the worst and all."

With that Tai realized that he needed to spend quite a bit of time getting her familiar with his world before any such meeting.


	94. 4-1E Ghosts of the Past

\--- Ghosts of the Past ---

"Grandpa!" Cody said as soon as Chikara Hida got back in the apartment. "Did you have a good time?" he asked, and was slightly surprised to see his grandfather transform into a Marowak as soon as the door was closed.

"Cody, it is good to see you again," the elder Ground type replied. "Fumiko, it seems you have evolved!"

"Yes, and I'm quite sure Cody is rather close himself now from his own training," she proudly replied, now a bit taller and far pointier. "I had thought it would take you longer to back though, was there a problem?" his daughter in law asked with concern.

"An opportunity, although I'm unsure if I should have taken Celebi up on it. For me it has been months since I last saw you all," the Bone Keeper told them, and then went to his bag to get out a number of things. "I managed to find the ingredients for a number of your grandfather's recipes."

"So, you're gonna be a monster too now?" Armadillomon asked a bit uncertainly as fruit and guides to grow them were handed over.

"Quite a bit of the time at least," Chikara confessed. "There are a number of things I wish to do now, and hopefully we can find the space for all of them."

"Marowak stuff?" Cody asked with some interest. "Do you think dad would have been one too?"

His grandfather paused for a moment, and then nodded. "That question is one of many things I wish to deal with. I have some things to get started there, but there is a question for you and your brother that I will need to ask as a Marowak," the old pokemon sighed.

\---

Ken Ichijouji felt much better about how his attempts to get the game back on track were going. He had to admit that the Hackers were a worthy foe for his intelligence, an opponent that was more than willing to challenge all of his capabilities at once. His work to determine just how their strange technology worked was proof of that. They seemed to be simply making minimally crafted digital constructs that produced the desired results, a very simple way of hijacking the game world to do what they wanted instead of its designed operation.

His own work on using that capability was already showing excellent results. The minor energy restoration pods they used commonly were so trivial to reproduce that he was quite sure it was a common design that they had copied themselves. The fabrication device for them on the other hand was a marvel that achieved the creation using only a non-standard energy that he could just barely identify. Indeed most of their technology was based on that fabrication energy, and it was even used to augment a number of their attacks. Currently he had only managed to make hybrid devices using a Hacker made energy conversion unit to produce the energy for his own purposes, but it seemed to be only a matter of time for him to unlock the key to the generation capability himself.

"Got some news for ya, Boss Man," Dark Tyranomon rumbled as she arrived at the test site for some practical work with those results. "Good, bad, and tricky."

"Start with the bad news," the Emperor replied a bit cheerfully. He was very much looking forward to his success being shown.

"Bad news is that a good number of the Ultimates we've been able to identify are gone," the dinosaur digimon said sadly. "So it looks like however the digimon are disappearing from Hacker areas is a thing strong enough to hit them too."

That was fairly bad news all things considered. Ultimates were rare overall, and while most did not have the same strength as his advisor's digimon forms, they were still far stronger than Champions. "Is the good news better?" he asked at her fairly reserved tone. It seemed that Dark Tyranomon at least didn't think that was bad enough news to be worried about his reaction.

"Good news is that I've managed to convince a good number of the ones still in your territory to side with us," she rumbled with a dark smirk. "They can break the Dark Rings too easily to control, but quite a few are willing to side with you if it means protection from the Hackers." She then sighed. "Although that also is where things get tricky. There are a few that don't want to do that, but they do say they're willing to make a deal. We take the Spires out of their territory, they fight to keep it clear of the Hackers, and ignore anywhere else we take."

The mere idea had Ken's mind swimming with the interference he'd been running into. "Work with Wormmon on getting them to agree with something," he ground out, angry about this clear sabotage of his ability to gather allies against the Hackers.

"Boss Man?" Dark Tyranomon asked with some concern. "You're acting like my brother did before a fight again." She shifted uneasily, while he tried to figure out exactly what she meant by that. "He never did like fighting, but something about Myotismon got him fired up for it. I had to half throw the last match the two of us had to get him on the trip to the other world," she continued lost in thought. "Heh, I hate thinking about that. Reminds me that I basically killed him myself."

The room was silent for a long moment, and Ken couldn't remember why she was looking at him with confused horror. "Boss Man, you okay? You-" she started to question.

"Quiet!" he demanded harshly. "We have work to do."

\---

Cody nervously looked at the small area his grandfather had set up. The older Ground type was currently in the middle of an attempt to make a re-creation of his father's skull, and the method apparently would result in it being the shape of what his father's pokemon form would have been.

His brother was if anything more nervous, as the armored digimon was awkwardly staying towards the edge of the area. If Cody had to guess he'd say that Armadillomon didn't feel like he was supposed to be there, and the Sandshrew could really understand that sentiment. He didn't feel fully comfortable himself, because there was still a chance that his father wasn't a Marowak. If that was the case then there was a lot less reason for them to be around Marowak rituals, which seemed like they would be rather private things.

The specially made powder that was the focus of the ritual had filled a rather large box, but the remade skull that emerged from it was smaller than what Cody had expected. His grandfather's reaction was incredibly sad at the result. "I had thought he would be fully evolved," Chikara Hida said with a grave sigh as he cradled the skull. The remade bone had a similar shape to the one fused to the Marowak's face, but notably smaller and narrower. "I. I did not expect him to have only been a Cubone."

"But, Hiroki was trained," Cody's mom said faintly. "Did something go wrong?" She didn't sound like she believed what she was asking.

"I do not believe so," his grandfather said carefully inspecting the skull. "I, I can feel his spirit's touch on this, although. Although the thought that he had not been skilled enough to cross the threshold to evolve..." The older pokemon trailed off after speaking a bit formally, clearly feeling out the situation by using specific words to describe it.

"Well, don't some pokemon not evolve right away?" Armadillomon asked cautiously. "Maybe that's what happened instead," the digimon suggested.

Cody's grandfather gasped at that, and looked incredibly sad. "A Cubone that lost someone tends to evolve when they are at peace with that loss," the Marowak said gravely. "I wonder, did he not make peace with his loss of contact with the digimon world?" There was a hint of a pulse from the skull that Cody could just barely feel, and he heard the entire room become silent. "It worked," Chikara Hida said with tears in his eyes. "It worked."

\---

Dark Tyranomon grumbled a bit as she moved onto the next item. So far they had gone over the medical gel pod things, which let him hurt her with the excuse that it showed off how quickly they restored her, and a couple of strength enhancers that clearly were not ready at all that ended up making her use more of the healing things. That was honestly a lot faster than it would have taken many other dark rulers to get over any sort of anger problem, and the healing things actually worked really well.

"I think we can say these things are more than worth it, Boss Man," she told him as she inspected an unneeded one of the small black globs. They had a fairly thick shell, but were easily deformed and clearly full of something that was almost a fluid.

"Yes, they are working quite well," the Emperor replied with a much calmer tone than earlier. "The next question is if the booster project is functional yet. That is going to be a more complex one."

"Is it one of those you had me move out of that one base?" she asked him. "The one you said not to bother with defending?"

"Hmm, no, that was related to the construct improvement project," he answered her as he led them over to a set of large black crystals. "Along with a key component of my newest strategy against the Hackers."

"New strategy? How's the kids attacking us a strategy against the crystals?" she asked as she casually picked up one of the gems.

"Why, it is quite simple actually. The Hackers are using a number of large scale energy production sites to support their growth," her boss replied grandly. "I lack the power and mobility to destroy those locations, but I have the ability to identify those sites. So, I made sure to leave that data for the Digidestined brats to find. With that information those kids should be able to attack those locations for us." He moved to a console next to where the stones had been placed and began to go over the information displayed there.

"Hmm, I guess that's at least a good use of a place you know is going to get hit," she replied, and gave an uncertain look to the slightly off way the crystal she was holding felt.

"Yes, it is unfortunate that it appears I'm not the first to think of it," he complained. "The base you moved them to was just hit, and I'm quite sure the data on its location was found in a Hacker site they raided recently." Luckily the Emperor was distracted enough by their current project that he had admitted that loss in the tone he got when he forgot digimon were people too. "This latest series of attacks on our facilities began after they hit a location with a Hacker data archive."

"So we can keep track of when the crystals might try it again then?" Dark Tyranomon asked to focus on a positive aspect of that information.

"I believe so, although admittedly those things tend to be located at generator sites," the Emperor sighed. "Now, as for this new device." He motioned to the gem she was holding. "In theory it should infuse you with extra energy beyond what your current maximum allows, granting a short term boost to your power until you use it up. From current data that should occur faster than you would lose an equal amount of your normal energy, but I need practical data to verify that it is the case."

"So, what do I do, eat it or something?" she asked frowning. The faceted shiny black rock was slightly larger than the Emperor's hand, so it would be easy for her to just eat.

"You can try that option later," he said distractedly. "For now I want you to attempt to draw the power out of it in the same manner as the restoration items."

Dark Tyranomon frowned at that option, and considered how exactly to go about doing that. She started by moving the thing to fully rest on her palm, and then squeezing it. She did that more to focus on the task than try and force the thing physically. After a moment she succeeded, and found herself shuddering as the gem dissolved away and the energy fed into her body. This felt off though, as if something had shifted in her energy instead of her getting more of it.

"Hmm, that isn't right," the Emperor said, his gaze fixed on the machines around him. "Your energy is still at the same level, but is now..." The human trailed off thoughtfully. "Go through your attacks. Do it slowly so I can get better results."

"Things definitely feel off," she said, and started off with an empowered slash of her claws. A slash that now trailed black energy that went out to scrape gouges in the wall of the test area. "What, was, that?" she bluntly asked emphasizing each word.

"Fascinating," her boss said with his typical distracted wonder. "Can you isolate that energy without launching it?"

"Iso- Boss Man, I don't even know what the hell I just did," Dark Tyranomon rumbled back at him, although she did play with trying to make a small slash while holding the energy just behind her claws. This didn't quite work, as the energy still moved towards her target, just going more slowly instead of staying still.

"This is a wonderful development," the Emperor laughed at whatever he saw on his computer. "You now seem to have access to the Hacker's fabrication energy. I need you to keep track of how long this lasts."

The dinosaur digimon considered the feeling. Her energy wasn't shifting now, it was just changed. "What if it doesn't wear off, Boss Man?" she asked as she tried a couple of her typical tricks to make herself stronger. "Because that felt more like evolution than a power boost."

"Then you should be able to accomplish a number of things that would aid my efforts greatly," he replied grandly. "This could even be a key to unlocking more of the Hacker's capabilities. Although it is slightly disappointing that it didn't provide the temporary boost I had anticipated."

"As disappointing as your 'advisors' spending all their time freaking out?" she asked mostly just to complain about those two. "I haven't seen the two of them for a while now." She looked over to the doorway that led to their own private command center.

"Hmph," the Emperor huffed, although he did get a bit of that glassy eyed look that still reminded her of her brother. "I don't really expect them to be all that capable of providing much assistance given they are relying on me to save their project." He shook his head. "There also seems to be some Hacker interference with my ability to deal with their failings." He looked a bit pained to say that. "So, when you see Wormmon let him know that I want you two to make sure they aren't causing our work any problems."

"You okay, Boss Man?" she asked again, because this was worse than before. The way he kept acting brought up bad memories, and this honestly looked like the few times her brother had argued against fighting while in that state.

"The interference gets worse when I try and work around it," he replied, and Dark Tyranomon felt a chill at the way he worded that. "Which is why I want the two of you to figure out how to stop it."

"Of course, Boss Man," she said quickly.

\---

Arukenimon slammed the console in anger. "Where the hell did these things come from?" she demanded as she cast a dark look at the images on the monitor screens. Three of the four had images of the polygonal monsters, but the final one had a rare image of the new help the Digidestined had also found. The red eyed human shaped monster and the snake monster were both total unknowns, and worse were not even digimon, but the sight of a Gazimon casually manipulating data was the hint that someone powerful had joined the Digidestined as well.

"Well, it doesn't look like they are doing that well all things considered," Mummymon said in an attempt to placate her. "The red ones have a lot of strong things, but they can't stand up to us, and the Digidestined aren't even taking out Control Spires faster than we're building new ones."

"That doesn't change the fact that these are an entirely new threat we've never even heard about before," she countered, glaring at the black panels around the otherwise normal digital monster. "One with powers we haven't seen anyone else able to use, that has somehow allowed the Digidestined to turn themselves into even more digimon to fight us." It was an insane situation given what she knew about what that threat should have been like, and it also removed one of the backup plans she might have tried before. It wasn't exactly possible to threaten their human allies if those allies were already in the fight.

"We're still doing alright though," he argued as he pointed at the latest result of their mass production attempts. The black shelled artificial digimon had finally reached solid Champion stage at the end of production, and Arukenimon could easily personally produce Ultimate level ones given a bit of setup. "And you've almost got our army to take care of everything."

"'Alright', 'almost', those aren't enough," she said bluntly. "Something is wrong here, and we need to find out what. These newcomers are doing something, but they aren't getting anywhere." The Digidestined had if anything gone backwards, now mostly delaying their own advances now that the minion was taking his role seriously. The polygonal army on the other hand seemed to be content to simply tie up their own forces to the point where neither side was able to accomplish anything. While both might become problems if left alone there was no immediate risk.

"The appearance of being busy can be far more important than actually being busy," she suddenly remembered from the voice again. Which was the worst part of what was happening. The various problems were messing with her mind, bringing out memories she did not recall about times when someone was trying to teach her to deal with things. That one had been more about how to avoid getting in trouble with bosses, but here it held another possibility.

"Where is the trap?" she asked, uncertainly for once. "They are too confident for this."

"Well they haven't seen what we-" Mummymon started, clearly attempting to distract her with an image of their new R&D site. Unfortunately the feed was now showing a devastated base, with the typical results of the Digidestined's attacks scaring the remains.

"I see," Arukenimon said with cold rage. "Wasn't that location hidden from the children?"

"Yeah, the 'Hacker's found it a little while ago, but not the kids," her failure of a partner said with a bit of despair. "You don't think they're helping each other, do you?"

"No, more likely our little minion has exposed our work again," she replied. "Those simply built abominations are far too much of a hazard for the forces of good to tolerate them."

\---

It took a bit of effort to get everything properly checked out with his son's newly recreated skull. "His spirit is currently resting peacefully," Chikara Hida told his family gratefully. "I do not believe we currently have any reason to call on him." 

"No, I think simply knowing that is enough," his daughter in law said with a wide smile. "Although, there is the main reason still."

"Very true. Cody, Armadillomon," he started, and then sighed. "You both have the option to take up your father's skull. It is not uncommon for non-Cubone children to also take up skulls in the Tomb Cities, and it also isn't unheard of for twin children to both be given a skull from the same lost parent using this recreation process."

The digimon did take a moment to consider his reply, but from the face Armadillomon was making it was clearly a 'no' even before his new grandson spoke. "Ah 'preciate the offer, but it really don't feel like something I should do. Ain't saying he isn't my pa too, but this is bone monster stuff. Cody's already been learning how to fight from you, so it makes more sense for him to learn that from you too," Armadillomon argued. "Ah think in that case I should learn from mom instead."

"Thank you Armadillomon," Fumiko laughed. "I think that is fine."

"It is, that is why I'm asking after all," Chikara told his grandson gladly. "It isn't uncommon for those children to not take up a skull either." He looked at Cody, and tried not to force his other grandson by being too hopeful.

"It won't bother dad to wear it?" the young Sandshrew asked cautiously. "Even if it ends up part of me like yours?"

"His spirit will be watching over you from my understanding, but it doesn't mean he will be active in aiding you most of the time," he told his grandson, mostly just quoting what he had learned in the Tomb City. "That does happen, but it is rare cases, and is quite obvious that it is happening. For example, in Marowak that shows up with Ghostly powers and the ability to use fire."

"Oh! We met a Marowak like that," Cody noted with a nod. "She was on the new pokemon Champion's team."

"You did? I would like to meet her then," Chikara said happily. "But, the point is that your father will only be a little more aware than he was before. Small hints or feelings at most."

The young pokemon spent a moment thoughtfully looking at the recreation of Hiroki's skull. "I think I do want to do this," Cody agreed seriously. He carefully handed the reproduction over, and then watched as his grandson put it on as best as the Sandshrew could fit it. Which suddenly became far better as the young pokemon started to glow and then grow larger as he evolved immediately. Chikara easily recognized his grandson's new form as the same variant that he had met in the Tomb City, with rougher bone colored spines, three medium sized claws instead of two large ones, and the reproduction skull now fused to the young pokemon's face. What surprised all of them was the fact that the newly evolved pokemon was already holding both a bone club and a spine covered shield, although given he transformed with his own club the Marowak probably should have expected it.

"I guess you just needed that to evolve," Fumiko said happily. "And you can apply your weapon skills better now!" Chikara blinked, still not entirely used to the change in his daughter in law's mood after she had discovered the full nature of her heritage.

"That was different from what it's like as a digimon," Cody noted as the new Tomb Sandslash looked over his body. "Or maybe it is just different to not be able to go back." The newly evolved pokemon blinked. "Do I sound older now?"

\---

Wormmon looked grimly at the display of the latest attacks made by the various sides of his current war. The terrible crystal monsters were easily able to focus on any spot they wanted to hit hard, and the places they didn't outright attack still ended up hit by the Digidestined. Their latest plan to get actual worthwhile forces was now a burning wreck, the so called 'advisors' were failing to do more than repeat panic the insect digimon was long done with, and Ken was distracting himself with new pet projects made out of the enemy's unnatural materials.

"I hope you have some good news for me," Wormmon complained as he spotted Dark Tyranomon's arrival in a reflection on the metal wall.

"Got quite a few Ultimates willing to work with us, and even more willing to negotiate on that," she replied with cheer. "Boss Man even almost said we could pull out of places near some to get them on our side, so we should be able to set those ones up for a plan B if we need one."

The partner of the Digimon Emperor turned to give an unimpressed look to the Champion. "Well then we will need to make sure that they know what we can give them then," he said darkly at her once again implying that they take out Ken.

"Hmph, don't sound like that, Worm, I think I get it now," she responded in an easygoing tone. "He definitely is taking things pretty well for an evil overlord." She shifted slightly, as if she was trying to work out a kink in her back. "I just wish he didn't try so much untested stuff on me. I think this latest one might be permanent." Her claws then drug through the air leaving behind a short lived black energy. "Might be an upgrade, but I'd still want to know that first."

"That resembles what the snake monster does," Wormmon noted with a frown. "I wish we knew how those creatures were related to the 'Hackers'."

"Starting to think 'hacker' is a fairly good name myself," she said with a thoughtful look as she moved closer. "That seems to be what they are far too good at." Once she was next to him she continued more quietly. "Hey, did Boss Man have any siblings?"

Wormmon had to think about that one, to consider times that he had started to avoid thinking about. "I think he mentioned that he had an older brother, but I haven't heard him say anything lately," he replied.

The dinosaur monster nodded grimly. "Well don't ask about it then," she said with finality.

"And why not?" he immediately said with annoyance despite knowing that Ken didn't really like questions of any kind anymore.

"Same reason you don't ask me about mine, it's rude to pry about the dead," she answered. "I don't think I would have handled someone talking like I did to him as well as he did. Only nearly took my arm off with an experiment." She looked quite serious. "All things considered he seems to be one of the better bad bosses."


End file.
